Recipie for Firefly Environment Part TWO

An earlier blog talked about the building of the actual fire flies. This continues from that posting (4/26).

After the LED's had been soldered and heat shrunk to commincation patch wire, the other elements needed to be built. A shallow 4' x 4' box was constuced out of the 1/2" ply and the 1 x 1's using 45 degree angled corners and wood glue/ nails to hold. It is just like building a frame or shadow box. After the build, the top soil or potting soil was spread into the box and 1lb of seed (Rye or Oat grass) was spread evenly over the surface making sure to cover the entire area, especially the sides and corners. After a heavy watering, a tent was construced over the box with the clear drop cloth to form a make shift green house to accelerate the growth of the seed. Rye grass takes about one week to really look good. Oat grass is about the same, only wider blades. Here are a few photos of the planted box with minimal growth. A standard clip light with outdoor flood bulb was added to increase the heat in the greenhouse (I had less time to grow the stuff for the opening).

Now that the grass was underway, the 3 fans were painted flat black to prep for the installation. They were hung from the ceiling by their bases (upside down) on the three walls surrounding the piece. They are there to move the LED's hanging from the wires attached to the ceiling at varying lengths. Also, the speakers were hung the same way, just high enough out of the viewers site line. All al the wires were coated with liquid shoe polish (black) to hide them and create more of an illusion. Also, the two larger speakers were attached to the meeting of the floor and wall in two opposite spots in the installation. The idea was to create a "surround sound" of crickets to fool the senses of the viewer. Here are some pics of that and the grass at 4 days growth.

And lastly was the actual installation. Each of the LED's were stapled to the ceiling joists at random lenths and spaces with the breadboad and LOGO chip in the center of the room. Each LED was connected together and paired into 16 units to connect to the 3 chips. Muaz did this part really, so check out his blog as well (http://techartsound.tripod.com/). The grass box was placed on the floor off to one side and the CD player was connected the speakers. And B-24, BINGO! Here are a few more pics for you.