Orlando Utilities Commission
On my most recent project, we worked with Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) to create a solar powered sculpture that would be installed as public art in Lake Nona – a suburb of Orlando. The sculpture was required to be interactive and educational, and produce enough power to sustain itself and feed additional power into the grid.
The piece our team designed was High Five. The sculpture consists of five pillars, all over thirteen feet tall, with solar panels on the angled tops. The middle corners of the pillars are cut away, and behind oblong, semi-transparent windows, a dazzling LED light array can be seen – day and night. The light will be interactive for the viewers, changing and shifting as they move around the sculpture.
There will be two elements to the interaction that will both send a message about solar power. On its own, the sculpture’s lights will be dim and gentle, so as to save energy. When an individual nears the pillars, the lights will grow incrementally brighter as if they are the sun giving power to the sculpture. As they are drawn in by the brightening lights, they will move to the center of the pillars. When the individual enters the group of pillars, it triggers a simple and beautiful LED light show. Enthralled by the sudden explosion of light and color, more people will be interested in exploring the piece. As more and more people approach the pillars, progressively more sophisticated light shows will be triggered. When people realize that it was the act of them coming together which made that beautiful light show occur, it will elicit a sense of community among all those involved. Also, since the solar panels will be visible high above them, it will be clear that solar energy is what powered their experience.
The piece our team designed was High Five. The sculpture consists of five pillars, all over thirteen feet tall, with solar panels on the angled tops. The middle corners of the pillars are cut away, and behind oblong, semi-transparent windows, a dazzling LED light array can be seen – day and night. The light will be interactive for the viewers, changing and shifting as they move around the sculpture.
There will be two elements to the interaction that will both send a message about solar power. On its own, the sculpture’s lights will be dim and gentle, so as to save energy. When an individual nears the pillars, the lights will grow incrementally brighter as if they are the sun giving power to the sculpture. As they are drawn in by the brightening lights, they will move to the center of the pillars. When the individual enters the group of pillars, it triggers a simple and beautiful LED light show. Enthralled by the sudden explosion of light and color, more people will be interested in exploring the piece. As more and more people approach the pillars, progressively more sophisticated light shows will be triggered. When people realize that it was the act of them coming together which made that beautiful light show occur, it will elicit a sense of community among all those involved. Also, since the solar panels will be visible high above them, it will be clear that solar energy is what powered their experience.
This was a competition amongst different groups in one class, and the winners were chosen by OUC and the development company, Tavistock Group. We worked in large teams to create designs that satisfied all of the requirements, were cost effective, and contained enough solar panels to meet power requirements. Although many of the topics I learned in my math classes were very abstract, I found that the thought processes I honed in classes such as Optimization and Differential Equations were very valuable to finding the proper balance of design and efficiency. Safety, accessibility, and maintenance were all factors that had to be carefully considered while designing the sculpture. One of the challenges in this project was communicating across disciplines to solve problems regarding design aspects, effective materials, and electronic integration. We quickly learned how to make compromises in order to satisfy engineering needs and aesthetic wishes. This experience was an incredible lesson in interdisciplinary communication and I learned a lot about working on real-life, large scale projects.
Our team’s sculpture won runner up, but OUC was so impressed with our designs that will be financing and installing it on their own campus.
Our team’s sculpture won runner up, but OUC was so impressed with our designs that will be financing and installing it on their own campus.