LITZO Lamps
Is it a lamp or is it a game? It's both! An exercise in industrial design, laser cutting and electronics.
Task
Make light with LEDs, acrylic plastic and the laser cutter (or 3D printer). Simple enough, right? Turning on a lamp is mundane but turning on the LITZO lamp would be a challenge! The Litzo Lamps are a set of pieces joined to create light. Shaped as tetris pieces, my group used its affordance of stacking as the main interaction in turning on the lamp.
How we did it
The pieces are made of laser-cut acrylic and each have colored LEDs and magnets (which conducts the power). Different puzzles forms were made and rejected before coming up with the final piece to make the pieces. Thanks to Joel for doing the electronic part. Pieces are meant to simply snap together to make the tetris parts but to add strength, we painstakingly glued everything together.
Result
The light is turned on by stacking a piece onto a base which holds the battery. As more pieces are added, the brighter it gets. These set of lamps are meant to be used as a nightlight. The white acrylic gives it a clean, elegant feel for display purposes when not in use. It's a whole lot more fun than flicking a switch.
