Interactive illuminator was a project that I made in school in the beginning of 2009. It is a kind of decoration lamp that changes its color from blue to red when someone stands in front of it.

It is made of aluminum and plexiglass. It uses a thermopile sensor with analog output to measure heat radiation. It is basically a temperature sensor that can measure temperature at a distance. The sensor detects a person by measuring the persons body heat.

The signal from the thermopile sensor is amplified using a operational amplifier and then read by an analog input on a PIC microcontroller. The PIC processor runs a simple program that makes PWM-pulses with duty cycle depending on the reading of the analog input signal to control two red and two blue LEDs.

This was the first larger project that I made containing booth mechanics and electronics. It was also my first project involving microcontrollers, therefore I got a lot of help from my dad with programming the PIC processor.