@Brice_Bischoff
Sounds do-able. High intensity RGB LEDs with suitable reflector & lens would work nicely. Some good fun in writing the software to manage perceived intensity (ie full power pure red will look dimmer than full power pure green which would look dimmer than full power white) but FASTLED would certainly be great for that!!!
No problems speed, pulsing, spectrum – even a basic microprocessor can far exceed what you want to do there.
With regards interactivity, would suggest looking at using IR emitter on the sculpture, and IR receiver on each headset (I’d use standard IR remote emitter/receiver pairs - which should work well even in sunlight, though you would want to shroud the receiver). That way you could not only control when the headset is activated (ie, only when user is looking at sculpture) but could also control / co-ordinate effects – eg with multiple observers and/or multiple sculptures. Would be quite fun to do tricks such as when multiple people are looking at a sculpture, each observer sees a different effect, or synchronising effects, or different sculptures each having their own individualised experience.
Might even put an emitter on the headsets to create different effects when people look at each other (or maybe just turn the darn things off).
Issues will be around hardware design, sourcing the headgear, manufacturing, etc. Don’t know if you could get price down to $20 per unit in a small run.
Also, sounds like considerable effort to design, develop, and test, as you’ll need quite a variety of skills.
Rather than developing something like a headphone unit from scratch, might be an idea to reduce the problem space by doing something like adapting a cheap head torch (eg: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4-Color-Ultra-Bright-1800-Lumen-T6-LED-Headlamp-AA-Headlight-Zoomable-XM-L-T6-Head/32260194704.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1_10152_10065_10151_10344_10068_10130_10342_10547_10343_10340_10548_10341_10084_10083_10618_10307_10131_10132_10133_5711211_10313_10059_10534_100031_10103_10627_10626_10624_10623_10622_5722411_10621_10620_5711311,searchweb201603_25,ppcSwitch_5&algo_expid=f4843190-7e0b-4855-8fb0-5f46e16985f8-8&algo_pvid=f4843190-7e0b-4855-8fb0-5f46e16985f8&transAbTest=ae803_3&priceBeautifyAB=0)
This gives you a power supply / batteries / lenses / reflectors / chassis, etc, for ‘free’ (in terms of design and build effort) and lets you concentrate on a much simpler domain – replacing the light source, installing control gear, and writing software.
At least might be good for a prototype.
Good luck!
