I think one of the most satisfying feelings I've ever had so far in my life is seeing something that I worked on come to life. And no, I don't mean come to life in a model - I mean legitimately, in real life, usable, workable structures.

Yes, you heard me right. Remember that project I talked about over the summer, the swing project? It's real! It's currently up at D street (right by the Convention Center) and you can't miss it - it's a massive swing set with huge, light up swings that glow different colors. It's pretty surreal, sitting there in the dark with a giant pink/blue/white halo around you and the Convention Center in the background. It's even more surreal considering Estelle and I worked on swing geometry studies over the summer and one of the ones we worked on ended up becoming the actual swings.

So the way the swings actually work is that they each have a motion sensor at the tops of the swings, and depending on the how the movements are registered (no movement, movement in the y plane, and movement in the x plane) the sensor triggers the LED light strip inside the swing and changes the color. Exactly how does the sensor tell the swing what to do? Alex and Neil in the office worked some Arduino magic.

Swings, before they were lit up

And then magic!

Some swings in action

I brought Veronica as my +1 to the Swings opening

The office got the swings to themselves one night, for a photoshoot!

And this time I brought Javi as my +1 because Meejin wanted more guys