Lightspan

An interactive lighting installation by Electroland on a pedestrian bridge at the University of Tennessee, Memphis Law School campus. The bridge reacts to the movement of people walking across it. The bridge is equipped with industrial rated infrared sensors to detect when a person passes by a beam supporting a lighting fixture. The corresponding lighting fixture displays an animation and special fixtures emit animations across the entire bridge. During inactive times, a gradual mix of blue and purple light washes over the deck of the bridge.

My role on the project was to develop the Java/Processing based software to receive signals from the sensors and drive the animations on the lights. I designed and implemented animations of various types, as well as learned a brand new programming language and development environment in order to interface with the programmable logic controller used to read the sensor values.