This project took a while for me to wrap my head around mostly because of the stipulation: creative and unusual, I guess I was overthinking what classifies as unusual and what does not. I realise that the prompt specifies no use of hands but for some reason I interpreted that as no use of hands to regularly trigger a button/ switch etc., as a means to activate the led… so hopefully my simple project still qualifies. I interpreted the light to embody a positive emotion since it radiated a warm and homey glow. I wanted to connect this to a meaningful something whilst making it so that it could act as a switch, and with my sleep-deprived brain, this really stumped me. The only viable “something” I could think of was relating this “switch mechanism” to the arts, which I’m moderately passionate about. And naturally this transformed and manifested into the idea of using scissors as a switch.
https://youtube.com/shorts/cSCZFdWsqJQ?feature=share
The whole circuit itself was not too difficult to create – it consisted of a green light, ground wire, resistor, a red wire and 2 more wires to connect from the breadboard to the scissors. The one thing I will say is that I had no no conductive tape or aluminium foil and so I had to make do with using normal tape to wind the wires to their appropriate positions on the scissors. Because of this, it wasn’t too reliable since the wires were prone to shifting, and so ultimately it would’ve worked better through use of a more stable medium. Whilst I’m happy about this assignment, I do have doubts on the “creativity” aspect. I also propose a more meaningful and idea-wise, stronger alternative. Perhaps I could’ve attached aluminium foils/ conductive tape to my chest and hand. Whenever I would place my hand over my heart, the led would light up.