Day Table: LEDs On

LEDs Off Sensing

I'll be showing a new piece called Day Table at Alwun House's Light House show from this Friday, March 26th until April 16th (opening Friday at 7:00pm, flyer here).

The Day Table table acts as a record of the previous day by sensing ambient light levels in its environment and displaying them through 24 LED strips embedded just below its surface.  The rightmost LEDs show the most recent light levels and the leftmost show the light levels of a day ago.  Day and night transitions can be seen, as well as human activity through actions such as turning lights on and off in the room where the table resides.

The table is made of bird's eye maple with a Danish oil followed by polyurethane finish.  An Arduino Duemilanove and eight Shiftbars (a three-channel PWM LED driver) control the 24 LED strips and photoresistor sensors.  With all LEDs on the table uses about 20W.

Light Sensor

Undercarriage

Innards

Here is a Solidworks model of the table:

Solidworks Model

And the Arduino code (Creative Commons licensed):

Arduino Code