An interactive LED motion sculpture that projects climate change data

This is meant to be an awareness project. The idea: How can I get people’s attention on a serious issue like climate change? My solution: a moving, glowing LED sculpture. This is meant to be a playful communication of (somewhat) serious research.  Shaped like an hour glass to symbolize the waning time we have left to solve this issue of climate change. A prototype and concept that I would love to expand one day.

Two stacked 3D printed disks with neopixel strips along the outside mounted to a 12V DC motor, designed to be used as a data visualizer for projecting climate change information. The user toggles through 7 data points about climate change on a p5.js sketch, each has a correlating visual on the sculpture. The sketch sends data to the sculpture via serial communication and an arduino. Some of the data points are static, some are interactive, as are the visuals. One of the interactive slides uses an API that provides real time Air Quality Index (AQI) for any major city in the world. Sourced from the World Air Quality Index project: a non-profit project started in 2007 that provides transparent air quality information for more than 88 countries, covering more than 11,000 stations in 1000 major cities, via those two websites: aqicn.org and waqi.info.

Github Code: https://github.com/juliantisomathews/Hour-Glass/tree/master

I have always been intrigued by the ability of motion and kinetic sculptures to attract attention. At this time, I was feeling inspired by Calder's precision & elegance and influenced by Tinguely's pandemonium.