iLumin8

Name of Project

To Infinity and Beyond!

Description

'To Infinity and Beyond!' is 8B's RGB LED interpretation of a black hole in outer space to commemorate 50 years since the moon landing. The Secret: Not surprisingly, there is no real magic involved. The secret is that the infinity mirror actually contains two mirrors with different transmissivity and reflectivity. Students worked together to build the optical illusion by painting and cutting pieces of pine wood to make a frame. They then used a regular mirror at the back of the frame. The tinted window film at the front of the frame, however , only reflects about half of the light that hits it. This means that, when you sandwich an LED between the two mirrors, some of the light escapes through the front mirror and into your eye. The rest is bounced back off the rear mirror, then into the front mirror again, and this process continues off to infinity - thus the name. But, since a little bit of light escapes each time, each successive illusionary LED that you see will look a little bit dimmer, until they gradually disappear - you can't actually see infinitely many LEDs.

Materials

Pine wood, tinted window tint, mirrored adhesive, black paint, acrylic, MDF, Arduino board, addressable LED strip

Students Involved

8S.B

STEM Skills

Examples include:

• Collaboration
• Critical Thinking
• Problem Solving
• Coding
• Mathematical skills using Modulo Mathematics
• Communication and teamwork
• Research
• Creative thinking