Concept / Process
Mantis is a kinetic lamp that follows your movements when you write. The initial intention was to create distraction. I made several iterations to find an interesting choreography and eventually chose to work with rubber bands.
The location of the pen (providing it has a white part) is detected by a webcam through a live analysis of the video stream done with Processing (software). This information is then transmitted to a microcontroller that drives 2 linear stepper motors.
The linear movement of the motors enables the rotation of the side arms that are linked to the central lamp body through rubber bands. Thus, the combination of the different possible rotations of the side arms enables different orientations of the head of the lamp.
Guillaume Couche. February 2013
