Nano Bamboo
An interactive installation that moves according to people's positions to provide immersive experiences
My Role
Research, 3D modeling, prototyping, coding
Team
3 Designers
Tools
Figma,
Rhino, KeyShot, SolidWorks,
Adobe Premiere
Timeline
6 Weeks = Research*1 + Design*2 + Prototyping*3
Results
1st prize award winner in ‘Think Youth’ Shanghai International Contest
Overview
What is it?
Nano Bamboo is an interactive installation that moves according to people's positions to provide immersive experiences. It's made by people with and without disabilities together to help the Fodu Xuan Bamboo Culture Creation Center based in Shanghai, China. This project won the 1st Prize in ‘Think Youth’ Shanghai International Contest.
Bamboo is a symbol of perseverance and nobility in traditional Chinese culture, and I hope to bring the idea of unity and inclusion to everyone.
Background
Limited audience
Fodu Xuan Center is an institute committed to preserve and develop the skills of Sichuan bamboo weaving. In recent years, Fodu Xuan established Shanghai Art Aid Promotion Center to teach disabled people the skills of Bamboo Weaving for free, which provides them with decent income. The disabled craftsmen become bamboo experts and contribute to the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
There are more than 300 craftsmen with physical and mental disablities in this studio and they sell their bamboo works to the regular customers of Fodu Xuan to earn a living. However, it is hard for them to get more people to know their works or attract more customers. They hope to better present their crafts to people in live exhibitions.
Challenges for the craftsmen with disabilities
Through interviews with disabled craftsmen in the studio, I extracted their user persona.
Idea shaping
System map
I zoomed in to find solutions for them in the exhibition of their works. I came up with many ideas of helping them in the process of bamboo weaving and crafts showing. To locate the core solutions in this complex system, I choose to use matrix clustering analysis.
Symmetric clustering matrix
Through clustering matrix analysis we decided to focus on designing an interactive art installation.
Prototyping
1. Brainstorming: How can we make it interactive and engaging?
Include many bamboo works of the craftsmen.
Use immersive and interactive light to impress people.
Enable audience to freely explore the experience on their own.
2. Parametrically generated shapes
To help the craftsmen imagine the result before they start a time-consuming trial, I simulated the weaving process in Grasshopper based on the rules of filament weaving that I learnt in the studio of Fodu Xuan Center.
3. Designing the interaction
4. Crafting 1/8 scale prototypes
5. Defining technical pipelines
Bamboo Lamps
The LED inside the lamp breathes as it rises and falls. To simplify the circuit, we conceived a lift switch that connects the live wire of the LED to a hollow copper tube. The copper tube meets the power supply as the bamboo lamp rises, and thus the total resistance in the circuit is gradually reduced.
The interaction system
We decided to use camera to get real-time positions of the models representing the visitors after we tried infrared sensors and pressure sensors.
