Building the Light Seesaw

My Role
Product Design Assistant
Product technician
Timeline
June 2021 - July 2021

Overview

A playful interactive work exploring physics and other elemental forces at play in the classic childhood seesaw. Play with the light and watch the seesaw respond to the tilt whilst you soar through the air.

Company
Eness
Category
Product Design
Design tools
Electronics, wood and metal working tools
What I did
My first project with Eness was creating eight of these Light Seesaws for a client in UAE. I worked on the project from start to end of construction.This included creating and constructing the inner skeleton, soldering, wiring and testing the 400+ LED Printed Circuit Boards. After that I was responsible for constructing the outer shell, general paint work and assembly.

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Be warned, this is no ordinary seesaw. This interactive light installation features a physics engine, enabling users to explore elemental forces at play in a classic piece of play equipment and in life in general.

As users soar through the air, the onboard physics engine, interacts with thirty-three rows of light along the seesaw’s length. Different settings on the seesaw enable alternate speeds of light in response to motion. Users choose varying settings that represent different atmospheres for example: air, water or space.  

Once a setting is chosen, the speed of the ball of light that travels along the length of the seesaw changes to demonstrate the speed at which – for example: a ping pong ball might bounce on the moon or how a balloon may respond to being pushed through yoghurt (just for something totally different).

In this way, our focus on fun expands beyond the superficial; taking users into the realm of science all within the context of play and a simple ride on a seesaw made of light.

- Eness