Project Description
Autism is a developmental disorder caused by an imbalance of the nervous system. It is a mental disorder characterized by severe and extensive social interaction and impairment of communication skills, as well as rigid behavior, interests, and activities. At present, there are over 76 million people with autism in the whole world, and the incidence is close to 1%. In China, there are 13 million people with autism and more than 2 million children aged 0-14. Most of these children have serious social and psychological barriers. They are enclosed in their inner world, almost completely isolated from the outside environment. They are slow but sensitive, stubborn but fragile. They can't take care of themselves and their emotions are difficult to stabilize. In China, this forgotten special group is called by a special name-"the children from the stars". We have always maintained our attention and love for these children. In this project, we have also tried to establish the connection between children and light, hoping light can open the window of heart for the "the children from the stars". We thought of soap bubbles, with which every child plays in his childhood. It is light and colorful, fluttering in the air and reflects the rainbow colors under the sunshine. But soap bubbles are just as fragile as autistic children, even a light touch may cause it to break. If we can turn soap bubbles into a flat window, the colorful effect still happens, and it keeps changing, but never breaks up. Imagine that the mind of an autistic child is like living alone in a closed and dark room, and the monotonous and unchanging scenery is still outside the small window. When the specially designed windows are used, the arrival of light would bring about changes. Light would become an artist, painter, and dancer. It jumps and dances on this window, and it draws ever-changing and brilliant colors. In this way, the light stirs up the children's original silent heart and brought new possibilities to their lives. Combining the principle of thin film interference, we came up with such a window design. An 800nm air interlayer are sandwiched by two extremely flat glass sheets. There are very small sprinklers in the windows frame above the interlayer and also on the left and right sides of the interlayer. There are grooves and pipes in the lower window frame to recycle soapy water and transport it over the window. In the interlayer, the thickness of the water film will change due to the influence of gravity, the flow of the jet water, the air, the intermolecular interaction force, and even the light touch of the child's hand on the window. The color will also change. The spacing of the glass limits the maximum thickness of the water film to be within the wavelength range of visible light, so the color change will still spread within the range visible to the human eye. In this way, we disassemble the white daylight into flowing iridescent colors and redefine the meaning of windows for autistic children. The windows and rooms are not only real spaces and objects, but also a symbol of the children's inner conditions. Colored windows not only improve the monotonous scenery outside in reality, but more importantly, the connection is established between light and the innermost being of autistic children.