Adventures in Electrostatic

I initially had grandiose ideas of hundreds of BBs rolling around in a object, turning LEDs on and off as they passed… but that is quite tricky to make a schematic of, and even trickier to fabricate (especially in a week). But I did not give up, instead, I simplified. My hundreds of BBs turned into one larger brass ball, and my X-Y two dimensional plane turned into a one dimensional track. I did however manage to keep the fluid movement around, so in that way I am quite pleased.

It works like this: The brass ball rolls back and forth in between two copper tubes (like a train on a track); as it rolls down the ‘track,’ it connects a current to light up different LEDs. All of that (ball, track, switch, battery) is encased in a little wooden box that you can hold in your hand.
The result, a little box with lights, is really just there to play with. Bring a smile to your face. Remind you that computers can be cute and human. I am most happy about the reaction this little guy brings out in people. Its almost like its magic. You can feel the ball rolling around, the weight changes, when you act, the box naturally reacts. Its what we are used to in our lives. When we drop a glass, it breaks, when we toss a rock up and catch it again, we feel it. All of that is mostly missing from computers and the like. I guess it might come down to less abstraction. People know (kinda) what is happening, not technically per se, but they deeply understand the cause-effect relationship. And not really on a rational level… but a subconscious one. It must be the subconscious part that is important, because I have experienced and rationally understood many digital interactive installations, but often you can only ‘understand’ them, you have to think. The experience is not natural. Like if I make the ball in my little box really lite, the whole experience would suck… the same electronic stuff would happen (rationally the same), but no one would smile.