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Cipher Wall
2022 | A Hirsch & Mann installation for the National Mathematics Discovery Center in Leeds
Maths City commissioned Hirsch & Mann to design a permanent installation to portray an aspect of mathematics in a fun and engaging way whilst supporting efforts to attract new and returning visitors into the space.
Focusing on the theme of code breaking, we designed a large-scale digital totem with a grid of ever-changing letters, inviting visitors to decode predefined secret messages through a 3-level game: The Caesar Cipher, the Multiplicative ‘X’ Cipher, and a Combination of both!
The main aspect of my role within this project was designing the overall technical system architecture, how the system could be designed for permanent everyday use with the ability for remote maintenance on the computer if ever needed in future years.
I also worked closely with the PCB engineer and 3D team to test and prototype the shape, brightness and light diffusion of the custom 16 segment displays we produced.
Once the PCBs were produced I also wrote a Node.js module to handle the RS485 communication with the hardware, exposing functions to set characters/colours/etc on each tile. This module was designed while working with the other CT writing the overall system software to focus on exposing the specific functionality needed from the hardware.
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