Our first day of Softness of Things was, as to be expected, inspiring. Along with our general introductions, Despina had us state a particular weakness of ours. For once, I had a good answer to a question. After all, if there is anything I do know, it is what I’m not good at. I explained that I had a difficulty “making connections.” By this, I meant, quite literally, that many of my projects had lovely components but, when all wired up, didn’t really work. Possibly like a certain Life Dress I might know. Regardless of past experience, Despina assigned me to “make a connection” and, in classic Elizabeth fashion, I over thought it. So, this post is how I over thought a project and deconstructed it just in time for class.
The Concept
“Making a connection” is a rather vague beginning. I chose to take it quite literally, since I had a clear problem and wanted to work on it. I considered many possible connections, clasps, sockets, solder, wire, conductive thread, plates of metal. I was particularly interested in magnets. It is a means of connection that I find particularly magical but I never seem to have them around when I want to do a project.
Anyhow, I brainstormed. After a while, I thought I would turn this into an exercise to try out a bunch of different types of connections: solid, interchangeable, plugs, and and the like. But what to use…
Shopping
After half an hour in Home Depot looking at metal and wood to mount in on, I decided to check out Metaliferous, a jewelry supplier near Times Square, which I had meant to visit for a while but had always put off. There, I was inspired. After wandering a while, multimeter in hand, I bought hooks, eyes, copper tubes, and chain and returned to the bat cave.
Soldering
Since this project was about connections, I had a lot of different types of connections. My biggest nightmare was the hours spent soldering loops to the copper tubing and chain and surface mount LEDs (left over from experiments on the GoL Dress) to loops. Surface mount LEDs can be such a nightmare to work with since they are so small that they are easy to flick about and completely loose track of. I operated with tweezers and needle nosed pliers.
Hot Gluing
The LED connections were so small that they frequently broke after all the agonizing effort of attaching them. Finally i resorted to reinforcing their connection with something that would not short the circuit but could span the power and ground, hot glue.
The hook
The LED strands were attached to power and ground by hooking to the copper tubes. This allowed the strands to be removed and replaced according to the whim of the user, me. I find that one of my greatest failings has been attempts to allow modular connections that are simply weak. In this case, it wasn’t the hooks that were weak.
Resistance
And here is where it all fell apart. While each piece was conductive to some extent, the resistance of the entire piece was such that the lights would not light up, even when given a goodly 5V. It really came down to the chain which, even at such a short length, was too resistant. And so I stopped cold. What to do, in the evening before the project is due, after spending two days assembling, when the circuit won’t work?
The thing is, this seems to be my constant problem, my circuits constantly fail from issues of resistance, current, or weak links. It is the reason why I said this was my failing, and yet, even when thinking specifically about this problem, I still encountered it.
So, I stepped back. The piping concept was still fine. The pipes were made of copper, excellent conductors. But what would I have them do?
Folded paper lantern with LED inside.Paper Lanterns
Just as I dozed off to sleep, the night before the assignment was due, the solution came to me. The easiest answer would be to use my common LEDs for breadboard testing but present it in a new way. At that moment, the image of paper lanterns came to me and I remembered a type of simple origami that I used to do a lot. This certain pattern would creat balloons that you could blow up and they would retain a cube-like shape with a hole at the top, perfect for sticking an LED through.
Today, I arrived at ITP early and with a mission.
Underneath the stand I have the copper tubes connected by bare wires.Base Circuitry
The final task, after folding the balloons and inserting LEDs, was to wire the copper piping to power and ground. I had mounted all the piping into a block of wood. I drilled completely through the wood so that I could stick the piping straight through and wire the bottom.
As a final connection, I soldered the ends onto the leads of a female header so that I could plug the wires for power into the lamp.
And so, I end, for once, with a success. The lights light and the piece is appealing. Three cheers!
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