1. Final Report: Project Documentation
Student Name: Hui-Ling Chang Date: Dec. 17, 2014
EcoLight
1. Abstract Statement
Many indoor spaces not only need constant lighting but also use brightness and darkness for specific
application, and most of them adopt artificial light for customized requirements. EcoLight is designed to
maintain desired lighting by natural light for different exhibitions in buildings, such as museums, and to
maintain the minimum lighting level by artificial light. Through the prototype testing, we can examine the
interaction between exterior light and rotating of blinds. The challenge in the testing is balancing the
interaction between natural light and blinds movement by adjusting the rotating angles within set points of
illuminance in Arduino. Another difficulty is how to connect blinds which are able to rotate with servo motor
fluently, and I refer to the design of solar shading systems from Unicel Architectural to solve this problem.
After examining these processes by fisheye lens, the future work may be to replace the flat blinds with louvers
in 3 dimensions geometry and to find what the effects between different shapes.
2. Prior Work
The RotaBlades, Brandhost Museum in München, and weather-responsive shade are three references, they
maintain good lighting environment by adjusting the angles of blinds for different external lighting conditions.
In my project, I would like build a responsive system on vertical surface to prevent from excessive light and to
adjust indoor illuminance level based on requirement. In addition, artificial light will be provided when indoor
is too dark.
3. Site / Context for Your Project
Museums are places where lighting design is important to the overall experience for audiences, so EcoLight is
designed for exhibition room in modern museums or experimental galleries. This type of exhibition rooms
need varied levels of illuminance or certain zone of lighting. For example, modern artworks are usually
displayed in diverse ways; some of them needs brighter lighting to show the effect of artwork, but some of
them would like to create intangible atmosphere between artifacts and observers by diming lighting. Moreover,
the smaller or detailed artifacts need higher lighting level for viewers.
3. Compelling Concept Diagram

2. Final Report: Project Documentation
Student Name: Hui-Ling Chang Date: Dec. 17, 2014
Figure 1. Concept of EcoLight’s goal
Figure 2. Concept of control logic
5. Users / Interactivity
There are two ways to control the internal lighting. For general exhibition, the lighting mode is set to automatic
mode which is for lighting the whole spaces within suggested illuminance. For special exhibition, since the artifacts
might need diverse lighting levels in the space, tilting angle of EcoLight is able to be adjusted by setting codes in
Arduino to decrease or increase the lighting level. The LED will light up when the indoor lighting is too dark, or
the lighten timing of LED is also adjustable responded with users’ application.
6. Methods and Materials
Materials:
 Arduino Borard
 Photo cell

3. Final Report: Project Documentation
Student Name: Hui-Ling Chang Date: Dec. 17, 2014
 LED
 Servo motors
 Customized blinds
 Resistors: 1000 & 100 ohms.
 Jumper Wires
 Breadboard
 9V Battery
 Fish lens
 Foam Board
 Museum Board
 T-shaped pins
Method:
1. Use lacer cutter cut foam board.
2. Build shoebox in 6” x 12” in 6” height and the vertical opening is 8” x 4”.
3. Make blinds by museum board, and use T-shaped pin to connect blinds with servo motor.
4. Build connection part for connection of blinds and servo motor.
5. Connect photo sensor as light sensor with Arduino Uno in a shoe box.
6. Design codes for automatically controlling light level indoor.
7. The blinds will rotating blinds based on sensing the internal lighting level and requirement of tilting for
distributing the sunlight. There are six assumed angles: 20˚, 40˚, 50˚, 70˚, 100˚ and 115˚.
8. LED is controlled by minimum lighting level indoor. For example, in my prototype, the minimum level is 300
lux, so the LED will light on when the interior illuminance below that setting.
Figure 3. Fabrication and assembly

4. Final Report: Project Documentation
Student Name: Hui-Ling Chang Date: Dec. 17, 2014
Figure 4. Electronic part
7. Prototype of Test
The goal of prototype for testing is to change or maintain lighting level based on requirements by rotating the
blinds in different angles. To achieve this goal, the first hardest thing in testing is how the changed angles affect the
indoor illuminace. Because if the angle is changed too much, the illuminance will decrease too much that will make
blinds rotate back and forth. Therefore, considering this reaction, I tested my prototype in terms of relation between
ranges of rotating angles and changing ranges of illuminance in code. First, I tested the prototype by cellphone’s
spotlight to find the proper angles of blinds and set points of illuminance in Arduino code. After I found the ranges,
the next challenge is to apply sunlight in my model. Because the sunlight changes very slow by time, and I am not
able to test the same sunlight again and again. I narrowed the set points of illuminance to make blinds rotate at least
once per 10-15 minutes. Finally, I succeeded in automatic control EcoLight, and maintain minimum lighting by
turning on LED when it is too dark in side. The future work is that build different geometry of blinds by 3D
printer, and see how geometry affects indoor lighting by observing the view through fisheye lens.
Figure 4. Final Prototype
Figure 5. Testing images by cellphone’s spot light from fisheye lens
8. References
IESNA (RP-30-96, 12, 1996)
Elizabeth Gay Hunt, “Study of Museum Lighting and Design” (PhD diss., Texas State University-San Marcos,
2009).
Site Image:
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2012-11-26-IMG8788.jpg
http://www.arup.com/~/media/Images/Projects/B/Brandhorst_Museum/BrandhorstMuseum644x60035HuftonCrow
.ashx?mh=800&mw=1000
Light Sensor Module:
http://www.instructables.com/id/BH1750-Digital-Light-Sensor/step1/Arduino-Code/
Light Meter:
https://learn.adafruit.com/light-meter
PIR motion sensor for lighting
https://learn.adafruit.com/pir-passive-infrared-proximity-motion-sensor/

5. Final Report: Project Documentation
Student Name: Hui-Ling Chang Date: Dec. 17, 2014
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Arduino-Motion-Sensor-Lighting-Control/
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10636
Control blinds:
http://homeawesomation.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/automated-window-blinds-with-arduino/
http://makezine.com/projects/make-37/mini-blind-minder/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Blinduino-automated-blinds-via-Arduino/#step1
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Motorized-Window-Blinds-Controller-For-Les/
http://unicelarchitectural.com/en/louvers/product/overview.html