isa gordon

custom electronics, LEDs, 3D printed spiral dome and laser-cut acrylic
2018

This Arduino-based beta project incorporates two RGB LEDs to serve as full spectrum color pixels for the simplified expression of mood and data. Utilizing a small HC05 Bluetooth card, the two lights on the Spiral Gem can be controlled from a custom Android app we’ve developed on the MIT App Inventor platform. The mood light can be set to a single color glow or pulse at varying speeds, or can be set to one of several cycling color themes: ocean, lava, forest or rainbow. The latest iteration of the app is incorporating further customization of the pulse pattern and adding multi-color cross fades. The data light can be programmed to call to a variety of Web APIs: online services that can be queried to return a piece of data that can be translated and mapped to a single pixel color display. For example, the WeatherUnderground API can be queried using a city, zip code, or GPS data, and the current weather requested would be displayed on the data pixel as color programmed by the user, such as yellow for sunny, blue for rain, pink for snow, etc. Other useful APIs we have harnessed to drive the data pixel include Yahoo Finance to deliver the status of a particular stock going up or down, and CrimeScore to alert to entry into high-crime neighborhoods. Other possibilities for future iterations of the project might include sports scores, breaking news alerts, riptide warnings, calendar alarms, social media notifications, or incoming call and message contacts. The possibilities are limited only by imagination and available services.

credits:

• Isa Gordon: Concept, software, UI/UX and visual design
• DEvan Brown: 3D modeling, CAD and circuits