Perhaps we have found a direction now that will lead us to something interesting. We have had a real struggle to get some feeling for what we are doing. After setting up the LED with a force sensor as an input, we received different values instead of an on and off state. Based on the possibilities to get different values, we went back to an idea that we had the first week about the possibility of getting a sense of direction through the LED. Our inspiration came from a game where you are trying to find a hidden object, and you get help by receiving an indication of if you are getting closer or farther away from it.
We wanted to explore if you can get a sense of direction with the help of different light patterns. Like a lighthouse, we want the LED to give the person an indication of if it is on the right track. This made us change from a force sensor to an LDR sensor to use light for both the input and the output.
The first example of getting the LDR to turn the LED on and off.
We want to test to see if the brightness of the LED combined with how often it blinks can work as a way of getting a direction. We have an idea about testing this in a box to see if you can find the “right” position in the box by searching with the help of two lights and when you are in the right place, you will receive a fully lit LED that has a consistent light. One side will determine the brightness, and one side will determine the pulse of the light pattern. The further away you are, the longer space you will have between the lit states of the pulse.
We will start by testing the concept with one LDR to see if it can give a feeling of direction. We have created a sensor that controls the brightness depending on the amount of light the LDR receives.
The next step is to quickly prototype it in a box to see if we can use light to find direction and if the LED can communicate this. But for now, it feels great to finally have some direction to what we are doing, and I hope that we will find interesting insights that we can iterate on.