Working on the seesaw. This is as close as we will get to seeing what exactly in inside the piece. (via ENESS)
I always enjoy when engineers transform old-fashioned toys and games into modern pieces of interactive technology. This time, the award-winning art & design group ENESS, which does many futuristic luminous displays, has transformed one of the oldest pieces to modern playgrounds: the seesaw.
They have equipped this classic playground structure with 33 rows of changing color lights and accelerometers that react to the changing or static position of the seesaw. The apparatus looks like a light-up candy cane, except for the red and white stripes move back and fourth as if they were acted upon by gravity.
The team has programmed the lighting circuits to provide different movement of the light. The user chooses whether they would like to see how the “ball of light” ping-pongs through different mediums. Air, water, space and even yogurt provide different atmospheres of resistance to the light as it moves with the seesaw motion.
Don’t expect this in your neighborhood playground anytime soon. ENESS is not reveling exactly how they built this so you will have to engineer your own. If you really wish to give it a try, you will have to travel to Melbourne, Australia’s Federation Square, where the installation will be till July.
Cabe
