Meeting Notes_lighttouch

Chris and I met last night and feel we may have settled on an idea we can all agree on.
We'd like the light to appear very opaque until it is actually switched on. Comparing the interface to something like the touch wheel on an ipod where the evidence of moving parts is obscured. We are still utilizing the idea of take and go and a movable light source with various nodes throughout a space. In fact we may now suggest that the things on the walls and ceilings are nothing more than metal plates that these objects connect to magnetically, there may only need to be one charging station. The other option is to surround an existing fixture with a ring of metal so we can magnetically connect one of these form around it and just use the existing system for lighting. We'd like the very form of the light to be infinitely reconfigurable by the user. We also want to make the whole thing magnetic to allow for easy exchange/re/construction. Our proposal is to submit a system where customers can visit and online store and sketch out their form (here I've shown a simple cylinder), which is transferred into a high res digital fab file, this file is then sectioned up into 1/8" thick sections.

These sections are held 1/8" apart by very small neodymium magnets, the whole form is hollow and the Guts are sold as a separate package, depending on your lighting needs. Style is something that changes so rapidly (almost day to day in the online world) so this process allows our product to always meet the users idea of fashion. It can't become outdated because the very form can be updated on a whim. The fact that these lights are held together magnetically and built on a modular scale of 1/8" means they can be added on to or strung together very easily.
This idea also should tie in nicely with the recent burst of interest in DIY projects and hacking common place objects. Essentially what we've done is provide a framework to let our users imaginations run wild.




The lighting effect of this should be great, with 1/8" or thinner sections the object appears fairly solid, until the light is flipped on and the thing mysteriously glows.
I plan to make a prototype of this to see if it really works and what type of light it will cast off.

What do you think Sam?