Above is one of my origami lights made from two types of tracing paper, one white and one blue, I had initially made the boxes in all the same colour but I found I liked the combination and thought it made the boxes more visually capturing. I chose to use tracing paper instead of normal paper for its translucent qualities, wanting as much light as possible to be able to come through. I had intended on using a different origami pattern but when I came across this one and tested it out I found that more light came through and there is more variety in the density of paper creating different shadows. I like how once lit up the box becomes almost like an x-ray showing the internal structure which would otherwise be hidden.
I used two different coloured LED lights which gave different lighting effects and were put together in two types of ways. The first was a blue LED from a juggling ball I dismembered, it is already assembled into a working light with a switch, a circuit board and two watch batteries. This is the easiest of the two systems to use as it can easily be fitted inside, however I didn't like how when placed in the two tone cubes it rendered them completely blue nevertheless I found that having atleast two batteries was necessary to making the light bright enough to penetrate the material. The second light I put together from a white LED and watch batteries, all secured with a lot of tape, it was from making my own that I found out the more batteries the better, for some reason though the light still wasn't as clear as the blue LED. It was incredibly easy to make the light and as the bulb uses so little energy and the batteries have so much power, it would last a long time before starting to dim, I would like to learn how to make my own proper working circuit with switch though and it would have made turning the light on and off easier. I would also have liked to have had a sensor in the light which would detect changes in the exterior light and sensed when something was placed over it so after a time it would automatically switch off. It would also have been interesting to place motion sensors inside them so depending on how they were set up they could either dim or brighten the closer someone got to it.
My initial thoughts around the lighting up origami were to have a series of the cubes which could be placed over each other, gradually getting bigger and dimming the light till it was extinguished, like a light up Russian doll. I'd have liked to see how the lights would have looked en-massé, almost like a mini Festival of Lights. They could also have provided an interesting solution to seating and lighting in an outside place such as a park or high street, working in a similar way to light sensitive street lamps so as the night drew in they would light up and could create a path through an outside area. I think there's quite a wide spectrum of applications for this idea, scale could play a large part in it, I had initially envisioned them quite small as personal lights but they could also be used as a way to bring people together or by creating a focal point in an area or by making someone feel safer in an otherwise unlit place.
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