The laser maze is a music integrated laser system built for UCD hosted or sponsored events.

• CD player
• along-range low power laser diode with modulator
• a series of reflective mirrors
• a detector
• regular music speakers
• Optics Club House Mix CD

Simply put, the laser maze is more like an obstacle course than a maze. The CD player sends a digital signal to the laser diode through a standard audio cable. The music is then converted to a modulated AM signal with a modulator custom made by UCD students.Once the signal is converted, it is integrated into the beam and dispersed across the room. The beam is reflected off a series of mirrors that are strategically placed at different locations and heights on both sides of a marked off corridor around the room. The corridor is for volunteers to walk, crawl, or roll through with the goal of making it to the end without getting in the way of any of the reflected beams. The last mirror in the series sends the light into a converging lens that focuses the beam onto a photo-detector that converts the AM signal into analog. The converted signal is then sent to a set of speakers with another audio cable. If a volunteer steps in the way of the beam, the signal to the photo-diode will be broken and the music will stop playing.

To aid the volunteers with their goal, a fog machine is used to refract a small part of the beam and make it slightly easier to get around.

Laser maze always draws huge crowds every year at Picnic Day (UCD’s open house) and just recently we have started bringing a scaled-down version to our Outreach events to demonstrate to students fun and inventive ways of using optics.