Installation · 2026
Butterfly Forest
An interactive installation for a wedding
Overview
What it is
I wanted to make something wedding guests could discover on their own. We built four butterflies and set them up around the venue, each on its own little table with a pair of headphones.
When you turn the crank, the wings flap, the table lights up, and you hear a short clip of the couple talking about each other. The interview process was inspired by the bride's connection to butterflies: each of them went on a solo walk in the forest and answered questions about the other into a mic. Every butterfly has different clips, so you'd have to find all four to hear everything.
- Butterflies
- 4
- Voice clips
- 74
The crank
You have to touch it
Nothing happens until you reach out and turn the crank. There's no motor, so the wings only move while your hand is on it, and how fast they flap is up to you. If you stop, it stops.
Mechanism
How it flaps
Inside the frame there are three cams on one shaft. The middle one is offset half a turn from the other two, so when the body goes down, the wings go up. That's what makes it flap.
We modified the design so it could hold a magnet and a sensor, and route the wiring down through the frame.
Sensor
Knowing when someone's cranking
I needed a way to tell when the crank was turning. We set a small magnet into the inner disc and put a Hall effect sensor (a tiny chip that can feel a magnet nearby) on an insert at the top of the frame. Every time the magnet passes the sensor, it sends a pulse.
There's no physical contact, so nothing wears out over a long night.
Electronics
Under the table
Everything else is under the tabletop.
- ESP32
- A tiny computer, about the size of a stick of gum. It runs my code.
- DAC
- Turns the digital audio into a signal the headphones can play.
- MOSFET
- An electronic switch. It dims the lights up and down.
- Power bank
- The same kind of battery pack you'd charge a phone with.
Each butterfly runs completely on its own, so we could put them anywhere in the venue without running any wires.
Firmware
What happens when you crank
I wrote the firmware, which is the code that runs on the ESP32. When you start cranking, a lullaby fades in, and after a few seconds a voice clip plays over it. If nobody cranks for about eight seconds, everything fades out. It alternates between the two of them, so you don't hear the same person twice in a row.
All the audio is compressed and stored on the board itself, so there are no SD cards to come loose. The music is a track from Snow Dogs, a game I'm working on.
Lighting
The glow
There's a warm light strip under the lip of each table. Every pulse from the sensor brings the light up a little, and it slowly fades back down when you stop. If you crank fast enough, it stays on.
Interactive installation · 2026
Butterfly Forest
Four hand-cranked butterflies, made for a wedding in summer 2026.
- Year
- 2026
- Format
- Four hand-cranked butterflies with sound and light
- Built with
- 3D-printed mechanism, ESP32, custom firmware