If infinity mirrors aren’t cool enough, the 10-foot-tall infinity portal should blow you away. Strictly speaking, the mirror itself is only 7’x4′, but you’ll still find yourself engulfed in the archway. The portal began as a simple prototype that we covered earlier this summer, which was just a frame of 2×4’s, some acrylic and LED strips. It works by putting lights between a two-way mirror and another mirror, reflecting most light internally and creating the illusion of depth.
The giant archway also began as a small-scale prototype, its shape and engravings carved out by a laser cutter. Once they were satisfied with its design, it was time to scale things up. The full-sized portal needed a a tremendous amount of stability, so the guys at Freeside built the base from wooden palettes. They needed the portal to travel to a few different venues, so the rest of the frame breaks down into components, including a removable wooden frame from which the acrylic hangs. A Teensy 3.0 runs all the WS2812 LED strips, which were chosen because each of their LEDs is individually addressable.
Check out the video below for an extremely detailed build log, which should give you a better idea of how massive and impressive this portal really is!
This gave me an idea that I think could be cool. Use the infinity mirror idea and set it up so there’s two sets of leds, one blue one orange that manage to only show up alternatingly. I think it could be done by angling them slightly so that they aren’t at right angles to the mirrors.
I did an infinity mirror pumpkin that turned out awesome. But I haven’t written that up as I lack good photos/video. That clearly didn’t stop these guys…
A mirror and some LEDs is a hack?
Comm’ on, it looks cool and the construction uses a laser cutter, cnc machine, 3d printed components, some prototype board, a micro controller and some software design. That ticks most of the boxes for me.
Throwing in the Ievan polka doesn’t hurt either…
Agreed squeeks, it’s a cool build. And it has an arduino! did any of these haters not see that? I guess when I get my lamp post shiftbright led project done, THAT won’t be a hack either! These guys set the bar too high. I’m hoping to borrow some sketch code to for my project.
Teensy isn’t an arduino, it’s a whole lot more powerful (ARM cortex M40. It is however arduino-software compatible, but not pin compatible since it can do a lot more – but is very small.
No 2 mirrors and some LEDs is a hack
The LEDs are actually WS2812B, not WS2812
Expanding on Ryan’s comment above, I wonder if you could use 3 to 4 rows of LEDs and sequence them “marquis” style to get a moving tunnel effect. With something this large you could probably induce dizziness in the spectator.
WHAT!!!! Awesome, Freeside’s infinity portal!!! I’ve been seeing this in all the stages of it’s making, I’m so proud of the guys for making it on here! I’ll have to go see it tomorrow
If you cut an adult sized hole in the center, you could walk through but of course it would hurt the effect somewhat. Any thoughts on doing this as an entrance to a home theater?