Interactive Fiber Optic Table

I’ll be the first to admit this wasn’t entirely my idea. I’d heard of something like it, and I’m pretty sure I once saw it done on a walkway at some science center or another. And the actual hard work? That was done by my longtime friends and contractors at Apex Install. I designed it, ran the FEA and project-managed, at best.

The concept is simple: embed plastic fiber optics into a cement tabletop to make the surface interactive. Normally the fibers just blend in. But cover one — with a hand, an elbow, a laptop — and several others elsewhere on the table blink off. The whole surface takes on a living, twinkling quality as people work around it.

The finished table installed in the IPG showroom, bar-stool height with a polished concrete top

The design got more involved than that originally anticipated. We wanted a lot of fibers, a clean install at bar-stool height, and — the tricky part — as few support posts as we could get away with while still being strong enough for a person to stand on without it cracking. So after modeling it in SolidWorks, I actually ran some FEA to confirm it could carry a load out on the far corners without the posts or cement failing, then adjusted the top’s thickness until the safety margins felt right.

Material selection was the easy part: 6-inch support posts and their receiving sockets, 2mm plastic fiber optic that didn’t break the bank, and cement.

Hundreds of fibers threaded across the rebar grid before the pour

Construction was straightforward — just long. Build the mold, then drill lots and lots and lots of holes through the wood portion of the top. Then, one by one over weeks of spare time, thread fibers “randomly” through pairs of holes (spanning distance mattered, and you can see how cluttered it got fast) and glue them in place on the outside. Somewhere in there we also embedded the studs for the post flanges and some rebar for extra strength.

Troweling concrete into the mold over the bed of fibers

Then mix and pour. Sounds easy, but getting the concrete to wet all the way around and fill every void was fiddly, and we were paranoid about ending up with voids or a warped top.

The cured slabs, flipped to show the underside

Unmolding was its own adventure. Every fiber had to be clipped flush (a few clipped back too far), then grinding and polishng the concrete, pock-fill with clear epoxy, one final clear coat, and install.

The table landed in the marketing showroom on IPG’s Silicon Valley Technology Showroom (an area I also helped layout and design)— an unassuming slab quietly waiting to surprise you. IPG has since closed that site, so the table’s fate is anyone’s guess.