Open Up, Atom! (the process)

A project by Marthe Visser and Bart van Son.

This is a description of our process. You can find the work here. 

At first, we were very inspired by the open space inside atoms. The space between a nucleus (the core where the protons are) and the electrons floating around this, is immense. We were looking for ways to visualise this, but struggled to get an interesting comparison. We stumbled upon many dead ends. 

Then we learned some more about atoms, and discovered they can emit colours when given energy. We found that every atom has its own unique emission spectrum. We thought it would be very cool to emerge yourself in these emission spectra, to feel like your surrounded by the atom. 

To find a LED string with individually controllable LEDs was a bit harder than we thought, but eventually we ordered a 5 meter long LED string. We chose 5 meters to be able to fully surround yourself with the colours of the atom.

Then we needed a way to get vertical stripes of light, to resemble the emission spectra. This was one of the hardest parts of our project, to get from a horizontal strip to vertical lights. We tried several things but eventually liked glass tubes sandblasted from the inside best. 

Images from the different kinds of installations we tried:

We had modify the glass to get the best tubes. For each of the 94 tube:

- cut smaller pieces (20 cm) from one longer tube.

- grind and polish the glass to get the sharp edges off. 

- clean the tubes with hot water.

- dry the tubes with air pressure to get all the water out.

- use sandblasting to roughen the inside of the tubes.

- cut 94 perfectly placed holes in a long wooden plinth.

- secure the LED strip precisely onto the plinth. 

- place the tubes inside the plinth.

Images from the work in progress: from left to right, Bart cutting holes in the plinth, sandblasted and transparant tubes, Marthe polishing the tubes. 

Since this was quite a lot of work per tube, we decided to not use all the 300 LEDs provided in our string. We chose to make an installation with 94 lights to represent the 94 atoms that can be found in nature. 

Image of how the tubes were fitted to the string.

We made the lights shine using an Arduino, a 1000uF Capacitor and a 470 ohm resistor. We had to initialise all 94 colours by hand, since we could not find a suitable wave-length to RGB converter. Then, for each spectrum we needed to specify which lights should be on and which off. Get in touch to get our code. 

We needed to find a suitable location. Luckily our options were expanded when we decided to use only 94 out of 300 LEDs. The location needed to be able to become fully dark. We fantasied about the Science Faculty as it would form a suitable environment, but due to the COVID-19 measures, we would have been unable to enter. The corona limitations steered us towards a more 'home-like' project, in the direction of a mood-lamp. Therefore, we decided to set up the installation in the bedroom of Marthe, which could be made completely dark and had an arm-chair in it already. 

From here, the interaction aspect was born. The user could, through an app (Wizard-of-Oz-style), read the descriptions of the several atoms and their character. The user could then choose which atom best fit his/her mood, which would then be represented in the installation. 

The last thing left to do was to mount the LED-plinth-tubes combination to the wall. Surprisingly, in the dark, the light from the ends of the tubes created a subtle extra glow above the tubes. The installation really came alive. 

Bart taking a picture of the installation (Carbon) on location.

The sound under the video comes from MaikBulme2000 who posted a YouTube video in which he/she shifted the frequencies of the spectralines of the hydrogen atom into the audible domain to create this amazing sound. 

Check out the finished project here!