A Handy Lamp
An innovative lighting solution that combines elegant design with practical functionality, creating the perfect ambient lighting for modern living spaces.
The A Handy Lamp in its natural environment, my workbench.
Project Overview
A Handy Lamp is a robotic angle-poise desk lamp built to always point the light where your hands are working across a table or workbench.
To make this possible, inside are 5 servo motors mounted at each joint, along with a micro camera mounted inside the lightbox itself. The camera takes in a live feed of the workbench. This is fed into a barebones machine vision model to recognise hand shapes. From here, the controller program sends instructions to the motors inside each joint, for the lamp as a whole to move with the sole purpose of keeping these hands in the centre of the camera. Since the camera is mounted onto the lightbox, it ensures the LED’s are always illuminating the hands and whatever they are working on - handy right?
The Motivation
A consistent inconvenience I face every day working at my admittedly large desk is that my angle poise lamp always needs adjusting as I move around during the making process. An example of a common workflow I’d encounter is sketching something into a booklet - an exercise that needs focused light in the right direction so my hand doesn’t cast a shadow onto where I draw. Then moving to check on my 3D print as it progresses - requiring the lamp to be directed through the glass. Then moving up to find a specific tool or part box on the shelf rack above my desk - again requiring some intentional lamp poising.
Of course none of this can qualify as anything more than a minor inconvenience - I’ve lived with it for many months, but why settle? Part of the joy with this project is exploring what it means to not settle, despite the arguably inconsequential nature of the solution.
Design Iterations
Mk 1
The initial prototype (Mk 1) was my first step beyond investigation into the basic geometrical form; instead demonstrating the core mechanical structure and movement capabilities. This version focused on building a full scale posable implementation of the lamp to experiment with the range of possible positions and gain an understanding for its presence within its environment.
In line with keeping costs at a minimum, I repurposed a slot-shaped metal bar to act as the structural core, and 3D printed joint components that were fitted at each end. The joints themselves used rudimentary 'hole and shaft' designs, whereby the two diameters were printed with extremely small tolerances in an effort to obtain enough friction force to hold the joints at any angle without slippage.
The biggest learning I took away from this iteration was that weight reduction is essential to reduce the torque exposure on each joint.
Mk 2
This second iteration made refinements in 3 key areas.
1. Reduced weight:
The arm core structure is built from repurposed circular tubing rather than the slot shape in Mk 1. This brought a 34% reduction in weight across the same unit length which reduces the load on the joints as well as the lamps overall inertia which is really felt in terms of the effort the user needs to exert in order to position the arms.
2. Improved hinge clutch power:
Rubber is used to line the circumference of the 'hole' part of the joint, which ultimately allows for tighter - even interference joint tolerances to be used thanks to the compressible ability of the material. This results in a greater holding torque in each joint - Mk 1 joints were seen to slowly slip over time when poised in some extreme positions.
3. Custom LED strip:
This is the first iteration to use LED strips that are bright enough for me to consider them functionally useful as a lamp - Mk 1 used 12 year old repurposed LED strips from IKEA. The LEDs selected have a balanced temperature of 6000k and are dimmable via variable voltage.
Overall Mk 2 made huge leaps in both form and assembly, and is the first prototype that I could functionally use day to day to get work done. That said, there is substantial ground to be gained in additional overall weight reduction, as well as in reducing the 'perceived weight' of the arms - reducing the force required to adjust each arm.
Project Gallery
Design Sketches
Initial Concepts
The first design sketches and concept explorations showing the core features of the lamp's desired functionality.
First 1:2 scale model
Development Process
Prototype development via 3D printing to produce a 1:2 scale model, demonstrating the basic mobility of the lamp as well as its presence in a real-world setting.
Iterative design process
Continued Development
The lamp required a widened frame to accommodate internal motors and a camera. The photo shows the first iteration of the widened frame, and how its physical presence differs from the first model.
1:1 scale model
Real-World Setup
The 1:1 scale model was used to test the lamp frame in a real-world setting, and to evaluate the design's practicality. The photo shows how contrasting the form is to a traditional angle poise lamp.