Follow the Lights

Redefining the Lantern Festival Experience

Though Mid-Autumn festival is typically celebrated with a paper lantern procession, the SUTD professors designed a polygonaised spherical phone case made of frosted polypropylene to turn the attendees' mobile phones into lanterns. We took charge of the interactive part of the experience: making the phones responsive to different areas of the Garden.

Enter Bluetooth Beacons

We decided to embed beacons into the giant art installations, so that the phone lanterns would change colour and flash to match the mood of the story depicted. Since this relied on Bluetooth, we calculated optimal coordinates and beacon ranges in order to accomodate the volume of people, and to ensure location accuracy.

Building the App

Finally, all that remained was ensuring easy user experience. Within six weeks, we designed and built an app that would walk the attendees through the simple steps to convert their phone into a lantern.

Closing Thoughts

Just like Gardens by the Bay had bridged engineering with the magnificence of nature, our collaboration with SUTD and Gardens by the Bay would bridge engineering with the magic of a cultural tradition.

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