Combine tradition and technology in learning how to make a glowing Yup’ik dance fan! They were used in winter ceremonies, accompanied by masks they helped illustrate the story told by the song, accentuating fluid movements of the dancer’s arms.
Use this project to talk about cultural heritage, learn about Yup’ik traditions and ceremonies. You can bring them to life by spicing it up with some technology, and perhaps learning how to dance in the dark.
to make a PAIR of fans you’ll need:
tools:
The fans will be made of 4 layers of plywood
Your LED's have two 'legs' - metal leads. The longer one is the positive leg, the shorter - negative. LED's are polarized, which means that they only allow the current to flow in one direction. This will be important when connecting all of it!
Arrange your LED’s in their slots:
Use little blobs of hot glue to hold them in place.
Let's get to soldering! In order for the LED's to work properly, we will connect them in parallel. This way all of them will get the same voltage.
Use a different color of wire to solder all the short (-) legs just like we did with the (+).
We need a power source to light up our LED's! Most single LED's need a power supply of about 3V - and this is what our batteries are. We are using 3 of them so that they will last longer, and to be quite honest: for the cool bionic look as well! We will connect them in parallel - this way we keep voltage the same, while adding their capacities.
See if it works... and troubleshooting.
Put in the batteries and turn the switches on! Yay if it works!
If something doesn’t work, check all your connections, see if the positive and negative wires are not touching each other and shorting the circuit?
Natural fiber optics come into play - the translucent hollow shaft of the feather will light up when mounted on the LED, and the fluffy rachis will catch the rays.
Personalize your fans by adding a design on the front cover
Lights off and LED's on
Here is an example of a dance with the fans – male ones with feathers, female with caribou fur:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beU485Bxqxs
I would love to hear more about the Yup’ik culture in this lesson. Great idea for a very unique project!