Red Box, Blue Box is just the start of a bunch of interactive acrylic boxes that light at the touch of each other.
The idea of Red Box Blue Box was meant to be of boxes of different shapes and sizes with the ability to connect and influence each other at any side. However due to the time restriction of this project Red Box and Blue Box are the only two to make an appearance.
The humble origins of the boxes
The two boxes begin their humble beginnings as a pair of LED strips attempting to light.
At the beginning I never thought of programming an Arduino per Box due to my lack of knowledge. However eventually, I did manage for two.
The starting stages I have used Aluminium foil switches, as I wanted the circuit to touch and be closed, bringing out the idea of contact instead of a button. However there were some ideas of using a pair of magnets instead of aluminium foil, hence I changed the switch to be made of magnets. Hence I prepped the shell of the box to have two holes for where the magnets will be slotted, not wanting to breech the surface for aesthetic reasons.
I drew out a circuit halfway, only to realize later on that is not how a circuit worked. Subsequently, not only the circuit, I realized I was not using the magnet switches properly. It turns out that magnets despite being able to attract its counter part across two 4mm acrylic pieces, does not actually transmit code through (Sad non-physics student Elizabeth learns the hard way, thank you Dan Ning for the physics lesson).
But alas, the first method of testing Aluminium foil actually prove to be the most efficient method of transmitting code. Hence resulting in the final product.
I Started looking for other circuits to reference, one being connecting two arduinos as such:
But I realised the accompanying code was more reliant on one arduino then the other, which is not what I am looking for.
In the end, I was referencing this circuit.
And creating a simple button circuit
I repeated the circuit for six sides of the hexagon.
Red Box Blue Box in action