Thinking in Multiple Dimensions

I've survived the first day of final exams, 2 down and 4 more to go!

Here's an interesting project called The Lumen, a 3D display that adds depth to 2D images. The neatest part is how they get each little pixel up and down; they use a wires made of "shape memory allow" that expand when heated and shrink when cooled.


[or watch this video here]


Good look to everyone taking final exams!

I have a dream...

As a young, somewhat lost, soon-to-be-engineer I loved watching Bre Petis's weekend project video series on MAKE, where a DIY project would be made into a simple video tutorial so even the most lost engineers could follow. As you might imagine, the day Bre's videos stopped was a sad one.

Bre Petis later had his own show on the history channel called History Hackers, and he is now one of the founders of a company called MakerBot. What does MakerBot do? They make my dream machine.


[or watch this video here]

One day I'd like to get one of these awesome little tabletop factories. I could print out parts for robots, housings for kits, little action figures of me (wait, what?), and just about anything else I can imagine, which is a lot. Unfortunately (or fortunately compared to other rapid prototyping machines) the MakerBot's price range is between $750 and $950 which if I run my numbers in 3 seconds correctly means that it may not pay for its self for a long while. While the BW Science Labs Store is finally pulling its weight (and quite a bit more if I do say so myself) I simply can't invest $1000 in a RPM, least for now.

How to get funding for projects

Here's the situation: You have the most massive idea ever. You just drank 3 red bulls and you're convinced that your laser sunglasses will sell like one of Apple's computers that come out every other day. The problem: you have $3 in your Paypal account after buying some nun chucks and X-Ray vision goggles. So, how do you get funding for prototyping?

1) Get an investor!

Easier said than done, the investor's security blanket is a fat packet of Excel spreadsheets, so you will be expected to have every cost calculated and scrutinized.


What do you mean you're not funding my Star Trek PEZ collection?! They're crucial to marketing. Duh.

Or if you're a student, you could always make a family member an "investor".

Hey dad, I have a really cool EDUCATIONAL idea that is crucial to my future success...

2) Ebay.

It may sound dumb, but ebay is my favorite way to pay for projects. I get to trade that really ugly messenger bag I have for a prototype. I'm serious, I'm actually selling a really ugly messenger bag on ebay, and someone is bidding on it!

I'm not a fan of long get-rich-quick ideas that litter the web like old socks, so I'll stop here. Get an investor, sell some stuff on ebay, and that's all you should need to build your laser sunglasses.

New 3D Scanning Software and (a little) BWSL News

Global

A Cambridge student named Qui Pan has built a fantastic program that lets the user scan any desktop object with only a webcam. The computer generates a 3D model in real time, all you have to do is move the object in 360 degrees on your desk. This gets me really excited as this would be the perfect way to get 3D models into Unity games. Rather than paying $20 for a 3D model of a water bottle to use as a prop in a game, I could go out and buy a real bottle for $1, scan it, and import it into my game- no $1,000 laser scanner required.


[or watch this video here]

Micro

I've been able to spend a little more time this week coding my 3D game, but only for about 30 minutes, which is about 3 minutes in "coding time". I was able to spend about 3 hours this weekend working with an Arduino microcontroller, and hopefully I'll get on to more advanced Arduino projects later, but for now I only did enough to get the basics down.

It's been a pretty good week for the BW Science Labs Store, the Vivus the Robot kit has sold really well, and sales are going up with Christmas coming 'round the corner.

With only 2 days left in school until Thanksgiving break, teachers feel the need to give us loads of exams so we can earn our freedom through hours of grueling tests.

Playing Sound With the Arduino

One of the great things about going to an awesome school is the teachers, especially those who will let you borrow microprocessors.

I've been wondering for several months now if I should buy an Arduino, the relatively low cost microcontroller that has hobby engineers going wild (seriously, wild. You would not believe how much someone can love a computer chip until you've seen the die hard Arduino fans). Fortunately, my school's ASR (Applied Science Research) teacher let me borrow an Arduino for the weekend. I've only had a couple hours to tinker with it, but so far I've been very impressed by both the Atmega 328 (the chip) and the design of the board. I've had the chance to sift through some of the documentation on the Arduino site, and my favorite tutorial so far has been the Melody tutorial.

Setup was quick and easy, once you get the hang on which pins do what, and yielded a pretty annoying little song (but still pretty cool).

I've gotten a lot of feedback that there should be more videos on BW Science Labs, so here's one I shot of my borrowed Arduino playing "Marry Had a Little Lamb".


I only recorded this once, even though it plays in a loop. After about two or three times of playing "Marry Had a Little Lamb" you start to lose your mind.

And for those of you too lazy to click on the link above, here's the code I used to make this happen:

int speakerPin = 9;

int length = 15; // the number of notes
char notes[] = "ccggaagffeeddc "; // a space represents a rest
int beats[] = { 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4 };
int tempo = 300;

void playTone(int tone, int duration) {
for (long i = 0; i < duration * 1000L; i += tone * 2) {
digitalWrite(speakerPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(tone);
digitalWrite(speakerPin, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(tone);
}
}

void playNote(char note, int duration) {
char names[] = { 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'a', 'b', 'C' };
int tones[] = { 1915, 1700, 1519, 1432, 1275, 1136, 1014, 956 };

// play the tone corresponding to the note name
for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
if (names[i] == note) {
playTone(tones[i], duration);
}
}
}

void setup() {
pinMode(speakerPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (notes[i] == ' ') {
delay(beats[i] * tempo); // rest
} else {
playNote(notes[i], beats[i] * tempo);
}

// pause between notes
delay(tempo / 2);
}
}

Control a Car With an iPhone

I've been following Waterloo Labs for a while now (they even commented on the lecture I gave on passion and science last year), and now it seems they're doing pretty darn well for themselves. They were recently on BBC radio and a variety of blogs (now this one). Their most recent project is a car that's controlled by an iPhone, which is probably the coolest youtube video of the year (yes, even better than the llama song).

Unityers gone Wild and Screenshots for Upcoming Game

Global
Unity 3D game companies are starting to pop up all over the internet radar. Once Unity made their Indie 2.6 game engine free, people started going Unity crazy, including me.

Micro

Speaking of Unity, I've been working on my own little project, and here are a few photos of the in game artwork.




The 3D city I have is pretty darn big and it's exciting to finally be working on a fully 3D project. This game is just a way for me to learn 3D programming by doing. I admit it really is just another first person shooter, but once I get the coding down I'll be able to work on some more creative projects.

I'm slowing store product development for now as I'm setting aside money to get a new BW Science Labs site. Once that's finished I expect to develop an explosion of awesome new products.

I've been getting some feedback from people who have bought the Vivus the Robot Kit from the BW Science Labs Store and aside from a little constructive criticism, the feedback has been really good. It's nice to know that people all over the world (and I really do mean all over) are putting together the kit and its not exploding it their faces. When people are putting together a robot you never know what will happen, they skip one step and it becomes aware, building armies of itself and setting its advanced mind on world domination. Well, actually that would be kinda cool, but you get the idea.

UV LED Flashlight Kit- Now Deployed

I finally managed to get the UV LED Flashlight kit up on the BW Science Labs Store website. I've already talked about this kit, so I won't overdo promotion. However, it really is nice to see more products being added to the Store.

The Picaxe 08- my favorite little chip

A few months ago I bought a 08 pin picaxe protoboard from Sparkfun. I soldered all the components in place and hooked it up to my PC to program. And of course, I got an error, because it would just be too easy if things worked the first time, wouldn't it? I spent a good long while resoldering all the leads and switching the chip out with other microcontrollers I had on hand to make sure it wasn't the chip's fault.

I recently bought a second protoboard to retry what I had previously failed. I soldered up the components for the new board, and 1/2 way through I realized what I had done wring the first time. I had soldered everything in correctly, but I had placed the chip in backwards! I find it annoyingly funny how I spent so much time redoing my solder joints (at least 2 or 3 times per lead) when the whole time I had just inserted the chip wrong.

Well, I learned from my mistake, and now I have not one, but two working prototyping boards. These chips are coded in BASIC, an infamously (in a bad way) old language, something like forty or fifty years I think, which translates to about 550 programming years. Be that as it may, coding in BASIC is really easy, as its just a bunch of barebones commands. I got a LED blinking demo working in about 2 minutes to test the chip.

The code looks like this:

do
high 2
low 1
pause 500
low 2
high 1
pause 500
loop


Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?


All I'm doing in this is directing current to the LED, making it turn on, pausing 1/2 of a second, turning off the LED, pauseing it for 1/2 of a second, and continue doing this until I unplug it, it runs out of batteries, or the universe implodes.

There's something oddly rewarding about programming hardware. Sure, writing security utilities in Python is fun, making games in ActionScript 3.0 is profitable (or at least for other programmers), and coding lord-knows-what in JAVA is interesting, but actually having a physical object that can do something cool in the real world is pretty unique. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an LED to watch blink...

Dual Power UV LED kit Ready for Sale!

Many LEDs and resistors selflessly gave their lives in the development of the BW Science Labs Store's newest kit, the Dual Power UV LED Flashlight kit. Their sacrifice has not been in vain...



While developing this kit I uncovered my true love for Ultra-violet LEDs. There just plain awesome! You can use them to detect counterfeit money, kill germs (now that's pretty impressive for a LED), authenticate drivers licenses (and passports?), and stun an assailant (*cough* *cough* shine it in their eyes). Not to mention Ultra-violet light produces a really neat effect on its environment, like making white objects eerily glow (there you go, another idea for Halloween).

I have some kits already neatly put together in packages, ready for sale. However, it may take a day or two for me to put it on the Store site as most of my time is wasted away studying for an endless barrage of Spanish tests, also known as "¡examines!". Interestingly enough, the exclamation points don't make me feel any better.

I'm really happy with how I balanced cost with awesomeness, as this little guy in relatively inexpensive (I intend to price the kit for around $11.99), and as you can see, it packs a pretty powerful punch.

UV LED kit- coming soon to the Store

I spent most of my day packaging Vivus the Robot kits, which involves unpacking lots of boxes, taking out the microcontroller, plugging them into my PC, and programming them one at a time. However, I did manage to find the time to continue working on BW Science Labs's next kit, a mini UV LED kit that can be used to sterilize your hands (and your prized action figure collection in the basement of your mom's house), detect counterfeit money (now hey, that's pretty darn cool), make your teeth glow white (the most useful of all) and a bunch of other really cool stuff.

I have a working prototype and I've got the right PCBs, resistors (that one took awhile, darn resistance calculator lies!), etc. However, I'm working on finding a better power source. The prototype currently uses a 9v via battery clip, which really stinks seeing that I'm trying to make things as small as possible. However, once that problem is solved the mini UV LED kit will be ready for purchase on the BW Science Labs Store.

Vivus the Robot Instructions Now Available

After much time and effort this weekend, I finally managed to put together the very detailed, hold-your-hand style instructions for the Vivus the Robot kit, being sold in the BW Science Labs Store.

You can also read the Vivus the Robot Instructable if you prefer that instead.

I had to take apart my own Vivus, and rebuild it from scratch to get all the images. It took a looooooong time, so enjoy every picture.

Happy robot building!

Robotics for Beginners: words of wisdom from a hobbyist who's still alive

I've been burned, electrocuted, and attacked by a rampaging robot* enough time to know the basic "do"s and "don't"s of robotics.


I think we forgot to solder in the off switch...

I'm by no means an expert, but all the same I have a bit of advice for the beginner robotics hobbyist.

I recommend that if you go the book route you avoid most of the "Build a bot" titles. I got the most out of books and manuals on the microcontrollers I was using. The 3 picaxe manuals rock and are free (available at picaxe.co.uk) and I hear that there's a great Arduino book out, but I haven't had the chance to use any Arduinos yet (namely due to cost).

MAKE (makezine.com) has some great stuff on Arduinos in their blog and video series called "How-to Tuesdays".

Here's what I recommend: start with a cheap picaxe (don't forget the motor driver chip!) and figure out how to get the wheels to move with the online manuals. Then, add a bumper switch and move on from there!

If you feel to afraid to even do that, then you should probobably go with the "have your hand held" route and follow a tutorial or buy a kit. If you do buy a kit, please, for the love of all that is good, do not buy a Lego NXT. They are drastically overpriced and won't teach you nearly as much as others. I enjoyed my experience with VEX hardware, but their microcontroller ($50!) drove me absolutely crazy. You could, of course, get the brand-new ever-so-popular Vivus the Robot kit from the BW Science Labs Store.**



Footnotes:

*: called my brother
**: I really don't want to toot my own horn, but the reason why I'm selling this kit is because I've found its good for beginners.

DIY Laser: (almost) out of Star Wars

I could not keep my engineering side at bay for long, even with a malfunctioning soldering station I had to do something. I wound up using my very-sub-par Radioshack (of course) soldering iron until I can get my real station replaced. It was worth the pain of using a Radioshack product, as my most awesome laser yet was created.

I know it as the Uber-Laser, the rest of the world knows it from one too many Star Wars episodes as a Blaster, and isolated tribes in East Africa and my brother know it as, "That shiny thing."


Say hello to my little friend!

I started off with a 3-5 mw green laser pointer I got from Amazon for about $20. I spent a great deal of time taking the assembly off with my diamond cutter (seriously, they really don't want people taking apart their laser pointers), and got it down to just the laser diode and circuit board. I spent another few hours fiddling around with the circuit board until I found something that works, and I managed to get the power output from about ~3 mw to approximately a little less than 100 mw.

I don't really feel comfortable explaining what I did with the circuit board to make this thing shine, for fear of some child blinding himself with the info he got off BW Science Labs. However, I should say that what I DID NOT do is fry the "03" chip with my soldering iron as some crazy Youtube video suggests. I also had to bypass the embedded ON/OFF switch in the circuit board, which took a bit of careful soldering. I then used a 3v power supply, a ridiculously awesome looking switch, and an enclosure to build the rest of the laser module.

I was able to kill 2 birds with one stone (so to speak of course), as I used this laser in my Physics presentation today, where I discussed the National Ignition Facility and how it uses lasers to create a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. I couldn't tell if my teacher was amazed or terrified by my laser, however it seemed that my peers thought it was pretty darn cool.

At one point a student asked if it could burn anything or start a fire. I was careful to mention that I made this laser to output as much light as possible without actually being destructive enough to pose a danger. And while the pyromaniacs in this world may be disappointed, I still am pretty happy with how this laser functions. At the same time, I feel a bit guilty with the title promising something out of Star Wars, but that's why I put the "(almost)" there.

This laser is incredible at night, and it produces a very solid-looking beam straight out of, dare I say, Star Wars!


Reminder:

While I used phrases like, "fiddling around with the circuit board", I did have a pretty good idea of what I was doing. I also took the proper safety precautions while soldering, and I wore laser safety goggles during testing because I wasn't in the mood to go blind today. If you're not responsible, have little respect for safety (or your eyes), or simply don't know anything about lasers, please find someone smarter who does know what to do, if you try to do this at home. Consider this my disclaimer.

Sunday Status: Steve Jobs's Fiesta and Building the Uber Laser

Global

I'm not completely sure if this really counts for global, but this week Apple announced that their 2 billionth iPhone app had been downloaded. Wow, 2 BILLION iphone app downloads, that's a lot of Fart Applications...

I can picture Steve Jobs right now with a little party hat on, toasting his victory.


Don't even try getting into my party without muffins.

Micro

I spent all day today building what I lovingly call the Uber Laser*. I managed to reconfigure 5 mw green laser diode to output nearly 100 milliwatts, while that's not enough to do anything really cool, its still an impressive feat. I'll be sure to give it the full post it deserves** later this week.




Footnotes:

*: I know, I know, I'm pretty bad at naming things. "BW Science Labs", not my most creative name. Seriously though, if you have a better name for it then let me know.
**: We all know what happens when a science project feels like it doesn't get what it deserves... It becomes aware.

DIY Navigation Robot

Seeing that this is the 100th post on BW Science labs I thought that merited a really cool post. BW Science Labs now has a mascot named Vivus the GoBot.

Vivus the GoBot has been under development for a long time. I chose to use the picaxe axe023 microcontroller board because it was low cost and small. The geared motors I used were very frustrating to assemble as it was made of lots of tiny pieces with little instruction on assembly. However, they had a good gear ratio and were very low cost considering the alternatives (pricing $15 for one little motor should be a crime!). I would have liked to use different bumper switches, but the Omerons were the only ones I could buy and were cheap, they actually ended up working really well. I used a 6v power supply which was heavy, but also great because I ended up not needing to solder in a voltage regulator. I would have liked to add two more wheels, but refrained from doing so because of the cost ($4.95 for 2 wheels?!). I used two tongue depressors as a chassis as they ended up being nearly the perfect size. I tried to accomplish this project without soldering because I don't have good ventilation and my respirator broke. However, this paid off big time as I would easily reconfigure wires in 1/3 of the time it would have taken me if I had soldered the joints.

Anyone who has ever attempted to build a robot from scratch know the challenges it presents, often time resulting in failure if one tiny thing goes wrong like using a different transistor than you should or accidently giving your bot one volt too many (Both of these mistakes I have made during other attempts). This is by far my best robot, and its nice to know that its possible after failing so many times.

By far the hardest part was coding Vivus. The picaxe microcontroller runs on BASIC code, which was created in the late 60's. I spent at least 4 hours testing tons of code bit by bit to get it to finally work.

And of course, every cool robot needs its own cool movie.



Or watch Vivus the GoBot DIY Robot directly on YouTube.

Maker Faire 2009

Once a year, geeks, nerds, businessmen, gamers, weird-clown-looking-people, and the (very) occasional jock, gather unified in one place: The Maker Faire in San Mateo, California. Innovators and inventors gather here to share their work, freely and openly. It is at the Makers Faire that anyone can learn from and enjoy hourly Tesla Coil shows, wars between mini tanks, naval battles between 8 foot long ships that shoot 1/4 inch metal bullets at each other, and so much more. It is where science, technology and innovation are displayed and discussed in a hands-on forum.


May 30 and 31st are a couple of my absolute favorite days in the world! This year I was able to meet many people who I had read about, including inventor Mitch Altman, the guy from the Myth Busters Adam, and of course several MIT students. I was able to talk to one guy from the MIT Media lab, who gave me some great advice about getting into a school like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “Don’t do stuff to put it on your application, do it because you are excited about it.” In addition, I met the award winning innovator who made a full oven that could boil water in minutes. This was remarkable because the oven was made of only cardboard, tin foil, and some paint.

I love the smell of solder in the morning, its the smell of victory*. Sparkfun Electronics held a small workshop. For the bargain price of 10 dollars, they give you a box of parts, and access to all of their tools and equipment. Best yet, they have experienced engineers walking around to help you build things. My piano teacher jokingly asked me to build a metronome to help me play. I was actually able to build my own at the Maker Faire. Those of you who know me know that I sometimes have a hard time with instructions, they seem to be slow and take all the fun of figuring out how the pieces fit together. I proudly made my metronome in record time, and was grinning as I placed the batteries inside. I flipped on the switch. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Horrified by my failure, I flagged down one of the “Sparkfun engineers” who quickly discovered that the microcontroller I soldered in was backwards. “You know,” he said, “it says right here in step one- to make sure that the notches align.” Whoops. The people at Sparkfun were kind enough to give me a replacement kit for free, which I am extremely grateful for considering that it was my fault for not reading the directions.

In addition to countless new innovations, there were the famous Coke and Mentos guys who repeated their show from last year. The success of their explosion formula has given these guys quite a following on Youtube. That said, there is no substitute for seeing their show in person.


Equally fascinating were the 3D printers that could literally print out flip-flops, hair combs, toothbrushes and just about anything else you could possibly think of. There were also plasma and laser cutters that I saw in action, along with a variety of holograms and 3D films. This is only scratching the surface of all of the amazing exhibits at the Maker Faire. The only real way to fully see everything is to be there!!

Working with LEDs

All engineers are different, some are clean-kept while others are unorganized and messy (I get bonus points there), some prefer picaxe microcontrollers over BASIC Stamps, and so on and so forth. However, we all have one thing in common: We all use LEDs, or Light Emitting Diodes. You see them everywhere: in your phone, your Xbox, computer, watch, and just about everywhere else.

Today I will show you a fun, simple, and cheap project that will teach you about working with LEDs.

A little while ago I went down to Radioshack and got a bag of 20 LEDs for $3.00. If this sounds amazing to you, wait. The 20 bag bundle is extremely poor quality, and only comes with green, red, orange, and yellow LEDs. I highly recommend you invest a couple extra dollars and get 5 higher quality LEDs rather than 20 cheap ones, or better yet, buy your LEDs online if you can. Remember to test them before you use them, I learned to do that the hard way.

Here are the parts for this fun and simple project:

-3 3volt LEDs of any color

-1 project box (optional but highly recommended)

-1 9v battery

-1 9v battery clip

-1 switch of any kind

-1 330 ohm resistor

-1 zip tie (optional)

-a soldering gun

-some solder

-and lots of hot glue!

Now that I look at at, this list looks long for a simple project, but its really a lot less daunting than it sounds, I promise.

These are the LEDs that came in the grab bag:



Unfortunately the bag did not say what voltage they used (typical Radioshack), and the guy there looked at me like I was asking him to name every neutrino in existence when I asked him about the voltage. I guessed about 2 or 3 volts, and went with 3 to be safe.

LEDs have what are called cathodes and anodes, or positive (+) and negative (-) sides. The anode is the long wire, while the cathode is the short one. I chose to color the negative red and the positive green so I would not confuse myself.

Drill three holes in the lid of the project container. I did this my my all-time favorite tool, the Dremel.



Sorry if the image is a bit difficult to view, I'm an engineer, not a photographer so you will have to bear with me as far as images go.

Glue in the LEDs and solder their anodes to their cathodes. This is really simpler than it sounds, hook together the greens with the reds and apply solder. Now solder your 330 ohm resistor to one of the two open leds (the little wires jutting out of the LEDs). Then solder the other end of the resistor to the correct battery side (guess and check to see which side works). Now wire the other open wire from the battery to one side of the switch (for easy access you should cut a hole in your box for the switch, depending on what kind you used), and finally the open LED's led to the switch. I used a zip tie to hold the wire to the battery to make it easier for me to close the box.



Attach the lid to the container with the parts resting inside and flip it on. If all is well, your three LEDs should illuminate the room (unless you used Radioshack LEDs, in which case you will illuminate much less).

Speedy the Robot

I just finished building another bristle bot named speedy.

Speedy is a fun and simple bristle bot that I built from parts that I had lying around the house. I make the chassis from scrap metal that I had, and I shaped it using my diamond cutter. This was perhaps the most dangerous part, as cutting through sheet metal in your room isn't usually a good idea, however if the proper safety measures are taken there's no risk.

I got the motor from my brother's Xbox controller, as he is yet to discover. Working with the motor was extremely frustrating because it has very short, thin wires that left no margin for error. It was also too powerful, as often times the enormous vibrations used to move the bristle bot would loosen the hot glue that held it down.

I soldered the motor and the power supply to a switch. I've seen and read enough MAKE tutorials to know how to solder properly, and fortunately I have a bit of experience with a soldering gun. The first contact point went smoothly, however the second point took me forever to get right, and the vibrations would keep loosening it until the point it would break off. I finally decided to solder it and then wrap the connection point in hot glue to prevent short-circuiting and disconnection.

I attached all of the parts using hot glue and double-sided foam tape, and added a flashing blue, yellow, and green light display at the front to give it a cooler look (especially when its on in the dark).

I actually spent more time troubleshooting then I did building, which is always frustrating.

This isn't my most applicable robot, but I suppose it could clean some floors before I take it apart or it drives its self off of a table one foot too high.

The Night Sky in a Shoe Box

I know its been far too long since my last update, however we all need a break every once in a while.

According to the polls, a slight majority of readers wanted more posts on Astronomy, which honestly surprised me. So, I took a look at what I could do that would be fun, interesting, and relatively easy so readers at home could follow along.

I decided to use the concept of using LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) to represent stars, and put that idea to the test. You can take any star constellation you wish, but I choose the Big Dipper because of its fame, and it could be done quickly and efficiently. I chose these little green LEDs because they don't break or blow out as easily ans others, and they are extremely inexpensive. I bought them from Mouser Electronics (see them here) for $0.06 each, but that's partly because I buy by the hundred.

You will need to solder for this project, so please follow the safety instructions here. I burned a hole through my rubber glove doing this project, so please, for your sake, do not skip the safety part.

So, let's get started. You can print out any astronomy picture you want, but make sure you plan where you want to put the LEDs ahead of time. This makes constellations ideal, and many of the LED locations are already marked for you. Also, be sure that the LEDs are not too far away from each other, otherwise you will need to use additional wiring to connect the LEDs.

Glue your image onto the top of a shoebox, make sure you have plenty of room for the LEDs and wires. I tried to use the tip of my soldering gun to puncture holes in the box, however I ended up using my trusty dremel tool to drill the holes.



Place your LEDs inside the holes, facing outward. Be sure to test each LED before inserting them in, I ended up having to replace a few after I soldered, which can be a real pain.



Make sure each anode and cathode are aligned (positive and negative). You can do this easily by remembering to connect them from the short leds coming out of the LEDs' bottom to the next LED's long one. Short-to-long, otherwise it will not work at all. Before soldering, use a glue gun to make sure the LEDs will not fall out.

Solder the LEDs together one by one (remember short-to-long). Once again, please work with adequate protection against the fumes and the very hot soldering gun. As stated earlier, instructions can be found here.





I chose to use alligator clips to connect to batteries. Be sure to experiment with different power supplies based upon what LEDs you used and how many.

Now, you can package it all up into the original shoebox and flip it on.



Be sure to let me know what you want in future posts by voting on the poll!