BYU Light Suit Created by Electrical Engineers for Award Winning Ballroom Dance Team
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- BYU Electrical Engineering students worked with BYU's award winning Ballroom Dance Team to create eye-catching light suits for one of their dance performances. The engineers built custom electrical circuits, wrote computer programming so that each wire of the light suit could be timed to music. Each suit had to be custom engineered to utilize the right type of power supply, and the power supply unit had to be light enough to fit on the back of the dancer, and it all had to be controlled by radio signals. See news.byu.edu/ar...
The light suits are equipped with 16 light channels that turn on and off in sync with a musical number. A master computer plays the music which is synched with signals that are sent wirelessly to a box on the back of each of the four suits.
The phonebook-sized boxes hold battery packs and a circuit board, with an antenna to receive the signals. Once the signals are received, a microcomputer in the box translates the instructions to the strands of electroluminescent wire on the suits.
The result is a flashy routine where dancers appear, disappear and reappear in lines of red, white, and blue light.
"The hardest part was making reliable circuitry on the boxes," said student James Mackie. "It's one thing just to have the circuitry turn things on and off, but it's another thing to make it work on a moving person. If the wires bend too much as the dancers move, we can get a short that turns off the entire suit."
Guided by their faculty advisors, Mackie and his fellow students built the entire system as part of a senior-level design class. They had to perfect everything from the circuit boards to how the lights attached to the fabric of the costumes. A good dose of computer programming was also necessary.
Get a close-up look at the light suits and see other electrical and computer engineering projects April 11, 1-3 p.m., at the Wilkinson Student Center Garden Court. Details here.
Ballroom Dance Company Director Lee Wakefield saw the potential for a "definite upgrade" to something he had tried a dozen years before with light strips, so he welcomed the light-suit proposition from Hawkins and his team.
"We jumped at the idea and just thought it was wonderful," Wakefield said. "The piece is really fun and works well in our show since we like to appeal to a wide audience -- kids love anything that glows in the dark."
The ballroom team already had a black light routine anyway, so the project fit right into their program. "Though they've certainly added an element or two of sophistication -- like coordinating the lights to the music," Wakefield added.
The Ballroom Dance Company is one of the most prestigious ballroom teams in the world, winning the British Formation Championships 19 times and winning national championships nearly 30 times over the last 50 years.
The light suits have already been used in a couple of the ballroom team's performances and will be used throughout the summer. Thanks to the collaboration, one of the engineering students has even joined the technical crew for the dance team and will be traveling with them through the summer.
"At first we thought combining engineering and dance students was really going to be a strange mix, but, in the end, it has been a very fruitful, cooperative effort," Hawkins said. "We've grown to truly appreciate each other and some real friendships have developed."
Added Mackie: "Some of the dancers were actually very knowledgeable about what we were doing and we appreciate that they are helping to show off our work. It makes us feel like we are doing something that really matters and excites people. It's been a great experience."
This was a great experience
I can't believe this hasn't been watched more. This is awesome!
Good job, Keshav and team!!
This is awesome!!!
Cool! Couldn't hear the voices in a couple parts of the video, though. :(
Tron Legacy = Crappy Movie
Tron Legacy + "CUT" / Ballroom Dance + "PASTE" = BRILLIANT!!!
No comprendo....