{"id":1111,"date":"2017-10-16T09:20:28","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T14:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2018-01-31T15:34:21","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T21:34:21","slug":"brent-reeves-on-the-making-of-the-quads-light-sculptures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/brent-reeves-on-the-making-of-the-quads-light-sculptures\/","title":{"rendered":"Brent Reeves on the Making of the Quad’s Light Sculpture, Lightwalk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the summer ACU sought out a way to combine creativity and technology to construct an interactive sculpture for the newly innovated quad. We asked Dr. Brent Reeves, one of the collaborators on the project,a few questions about this creative partnership.<\/p>\n

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What\u00a0made\u00a0you\u00a0want\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0involved\u00a0with\u00a0building this\u00a0sculpture?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Nil Santana teaches Art and serves as director of the ACU Maker Lab. He invited several faculty to work on the project that was to “combine science, technology, and art.”\u00a0 Hardware, software, possible blinking lights – that sounded great!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Explain\u00a0what\u00a0your\u00a0role\u00a0was\u00a0for\u00a0setting\u00a0up\u00a0and\u00a0planning\u00a0for\u00a0the\u00a0sculpture.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I worked with Nil to research outdoor installations and build prototypes of light-ish things, for example different configurations of RGB LED strips.\u00a0 We met with the donors, proposed potential hardware-and-software things. We had weekly meetings with Viget about hardware and software issues.<\/p>\n

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In\u00a0very\u00a0simple\u00a0terms, explain\u00a0what\u00a0you\u00a0did\u00a0in\u00a0creating\u00a0the\u00a0app\u00a0to\u00a0control\u00a0lights?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We realized we wouldn’t have time to build the hardware and write the software here at ACU, so we wrote a request-for-proposal and received a bid from a consulting firm named Viget.\u00a0 The system they made consists of a server in the cloud and 35 computers buried in the ground.\u00a0 Each computer has WiFi and is responsible for driving the LEDs on 10 reeds.\u00a0 Overall, there are 350 reeds and about 20,000 LEDs.<\/p>\n

One nice thing about the app is that it isn’t an app.\u00a0 You don’t have to install anything on your phone.\u00a0 Instead, you use a browser to visit\u00a0lightwalk.acu.edu<\/a>\u00a0to choose an effect.\u00a0 The server in the cloud sends a message to one of the computers in the ground telling it which effect to run.\u00a0 In turn, it tells its 34 neighbors what to do next.<\/p>\n

What\u00a0sort\u00a0of\u00a0team\u00a0did you assemble\u00a0to\u00a0get\u00a0the\u00a0job\u00a0done?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The ACU team consisted of students, faculty, and staff.\u00a0 For example, Scot Colley had to hire electricians to install a new transformer in the quad.\u00a0 The Viget team include hardware and software engineers.<\/p>\n

Is\u00a0there\u00a0anything\u00a0else\u00a0that\u00a0you\u00a0would\u00a0want\u00a0to tell us about\u00a0this\u00a0project?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Cole Spears is the first ACU student to design an effect (called “Shimmer”) that is now running live on the system.\u00a0\u00a0Next\u00a0Thursday, Oct 19<\/span><\/span>, after SITC “3:16<\/span><\/span>” chapel, we will have a brief tutorial session on how to make effects.\u00a0 So any student interested in making cool effects should join us.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the making of Lightwalk, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the summer ACU sought out a way to combine creativity and technology to construct an interactive sculpture for the newly innovated quad. We asked Dr. Brent Reeves, one of the collaborators on the project,a few questions about this creative partnership. What\u00a0made\u00a0you\u00a0want\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0involved\u00a0with\u00a0building this\u00a0sculpture? Nil Santana teaches Art and serves as director of the ACU Maker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1111"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}