This week was very productive for the development of my project. I completed the design of the light controller and made the product much simpler than it was before. Instead of having three buttons on the top, now there are no buttons at all. Instead, the whole controller becomes a button which you can press to switch the light you’re controlling and turn around in order to adjust the brightness. Definitely more minimalist than before.

The first thing I did was to speak with the technician Ali to figure out the best way to implement the technology into this project to bring it to life. I decided I would like to use the induction to recharge the button. In this way, you can take it with you around the room and it doesn’t need to be on the table at all times. This would allow guests to regulate their lighting from wherever they are. So once I figured this out I headed to the main workshop to create a new prototype with foam. This process helped me to see my design from a new perspective and therefore understand some challenges that I had to address such as designing the charging dock.

The next step I did was to make my designs into digital in order to get them printed with the 3D printers. The main components of this controller are three: top and bottom of the button and charging dock. The bottom of the button includes a copper-wire base that matches the size of the one included in the charging dock. This would allow the button to recharge the batteries.

Next week I will be fixing the design as there are still some imperfections, make sure that the electronic components work and eventually start building the prototype with aluminium. As well as doing that I’m also looking into start building of one of the lamps I will have connected to this system to show how the button work.