final proposal

Recently, my mother brought up renewing my passport and us going back to the Philippines when I’m on break from school. We try to go every few years, and the last time we were there was back in 2019. Since she brought that up, I was reminded of all the past times I’ve been there and different things I’ve seen, with one of them being this church in Manaog, which houses a large idol of the Virgin Mary. I usually see a lot of different Catholic idols when I go there, but this one in particular is the largest and most grandiose. It’s also custom to venerate a religious image by touching its body or clothing, and at this church there’s a specific area where you can go and touch the idol’s mantle through a small window, which I also remember doing.

Since it leaves such an impression, I was inspired to try and recreate the experience of seeing it in person through Arduino. I was thinking of recreating a kind of clear box that has fabric inside (representing the idol’s mantle) as well as having a projector (don’t know how this would work) display some kind of image of the Virgin Mary. I also wanted to possibly have the ultrasonic sensor, or some sort of touch related sensor, be attached to the “mantle” and have it change the projected image somehow.

I was thinking about the Philippines’ history of Spanish colonization and how that has shaped its cultural and religious identity, so I was going to try and incorporate those ideas/keep them in mind for this project (like how colonization is a "projection" in a way).

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