Dominic Harris - Swell

Concept

A large kinetic sculpture made of 60 independently motorised arcs featuring individually addressable LED strips and a RGB LED node.

It is permanently embedded on the atrium of the new Royal Caribbean Spectrum of the Seas ship currently cruising in Asia.

It is running 24/7 and shows dozens of different patterns and combination of motion and light, smooth and vivid, slow and fast.

Technology

Each arc has a control PCB driving the motor and the LEDs. Embedded firmware ensures correct and safe local driving. Synchronisation is set by an embedded system device.

All components and parts were chosen with focus on ease of installation, low maintenance and high reliability.

A Swarovski crystal band diffuses the LED, and the arcs are made of carbon fibre.

Almost every hardware or software component is bespoke.

Role

I designed the system architecture, chose all the components (motor, lighting, drivers, control unit, cables, and discrete components), designed and tested all the electronic PCBs, wrote the embedded firmware and the control software.

It was an intricate design work of aesthetics, materials, manufacturing process, time management, budget, shipping, installation and engineering, done in conjunction with Dominic's product designers.