This weekend we hosted Light Painting and Light Play at a special party at the museum just for members. I wanted to share a little about the preparations for the event and a few of the photos created that night.
We haven't done light painting in a while so it was nice to introduce the activity to our new group of project explainers. We started with a discussion about how photography works and made this example of a long exposure photo under normal light conditions.
They got the chance to experience the activity as learners for that session and pretty soon they were working on more advanced techniques.
I also got to spend a few hours making new light painting tools. They weren't as complex as the ones we constructed for open make:tools or some of nicole's and antonio's previous light painting implements, but I like the design as a robust tool we can use with visitors. I repurposed the battery packs from sewing circuits activity, switches from dissected toys, and hot glue techniques from circuit board construction.
I even built one using a tri-colored LED and three switches from taken-apart toys. A ping pong ball on top covered the light and allowed the colors to mix when more than one button is pressed.
The members event was also a costume party and some people already had light-up elements as part of their evening wear. This gentleman had an amazing LED hat that scrolled the word 'exploratorium' over and over again. He also had some incredible light up sneakers but we didn't get a photo of them. As he walked across the stage, the open shutter captured the entire hidden message.
It was great to see both kids and adults enjoying the booth and people working together to accomplish more complicated designs.
And as it was May the 4th (star wars day) as well, two of our explainers created one of the most epic lightsaber duel pics that I've seen.
