Dutch design student Trieuvy Luu has created a “living lamp” known as Junior. Erika Rae of Core77 describes Junior as a whimsical lamp that depends on your breath to keep his energy up.
“By breathing toward the lamp, Junior lights up—literally and figuratively—into the perfect playful midday distraction,” she explains.
“Junior detects the warmth in your breath and pulls energy from it to interact with your movements. The lamp’s main goal is to remind users to take moments throughout their busy days to breathe and interact with an object in a more natural and intuitive way.”
After a few minutes, the lamp builds up enough energy to track a user’s movements for short period of time and stay lit for a couple of hours.
According to Luu, the inspiration for Junior was found in the simple everyday act.
“The idea of giving your energy away is inspired from yoga and meditation breathing exercises,” he says. “When Junior absorbs your energy, you can see it go through his body. Just like when you inhale deeply and the oxygen is traveling all the way through your body.”
The lamp is powered an Atmel-based Arduino Mega (ATmega1280) paired with OpenCV facetracking. Additional project components include three servos, camera, microphone, temperature sensor and 6 LED strips.
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