Star Search

Over the course of a semester, I created an interactive art installation, “Star Search”, which calls on users to find all 12 zodiac signs hidden in a starry, night sky. To facilitate the interaction, I used an Arduino micro (and its accompanying Arduino IDE coding software) to map the brightness read by 4 light-reactive photocells to the 4 directions which my computer mouse can move (up, down, left, and right, respectively). After much trial and error, I was able to successfully shine a flashlight at any one photocell to make my onscreen cursor move in the direction assigned to that photocell. Then, I soldered each photocell pin to individual wires, hot glued my breadboard to keep all connections in place, and painted 2 star-shaped jars black (with the exception of the front panel) to house my photocells in darkness. With that, I taped my photocells in place (2 per jar).

Next, I illustrated the 12 zodiac signs in Figma and altered code found online to add a black overlay to my screen and turn my mouse cursor into a flashlight beam. Thus, users had to shine a real-life flashlight at the star jars (and the photocells within them) to maneuver the onscreen light beam and reveal my meticulously-placed zodiac illustrations with a hover.