“There’s Always Sunshine” Light
This is a LED light made with a UV Light Sensor. It’s for my best friend who’s not at the best of her mental health. She enjoys the sun and has a great amount of sunlight at her house during the day. However, when the sun goes down, especially that it happens so early as of Day Light Save, the apartment gets cold and a little sad. So I want to make this light UV light sensing light for her to remind her there’s always sunshine.
The light will work as when the sun goes down / when it’s cloudy or rainy, it lights up (tbd if the light intensity changes with the amount of UV light detected, also tbd if the sun part of the light will rotate with a motor when it lights up).
“There’s Always Waves” Light
This light is the opposite of a “night light”. I will use a Photo Cell / Photoresistor. When there’s daylight, the light will light up and the waves moves with a motor. When at night, the light will be off.
This light is made for me, or my friend. We are both really passionate about surfing. When it’s flat out there (like recently), we feel sad and can’t cope as well with life. This light is designed to sit by the bed so it’s the first thing I see when I wake up. I want this light to remind us that there will always be waves as the first thing in the morning.
“I’m Feeling Dry” Water Pump Reminder
This idea is to make a quite water pump reminder for people to water their plant. It uses a Soil Sensor Capacitive Moisture Sensor. When the soil is too dry, the water pump is triggered in a container, making quite water flowing sound and water movements to remind the owners to water their plants.
Hi Sige, great brainstorm! Feedback per idea below.
1. Sun lamp
If you choose this idea, look into SAD lamps as a product category made for folks with seasonal affective disorder– you might want this lamp to emit light to actually supplement the sunlight rather than just harken to it– up to you. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=sad+lamp
Seems feasible with a UV sensor on the back, or otherwise pointed towards the window. https://www.adafruit.com/product/4831
What materials were you thinking of? If the whole thing is meant to rotate, I would go lighter-weight rather than heavier. The stencil sheets that Team Sims used for halloween gave a nice diffusion and are very lightweight, for example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094GTRV3D/?th=1
if you want it to slowly spin, i’d consider hanging the whole thing on a disco ball motor as an option. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=disco+ball+motor
if you end up wnting to control an AC lamp or AC disco ball motor, you can use one of these to easily and safely turn outlets on and off with your arduino’s 5v dc signal: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2935
2. I can imagine your sketch made from layers of laser-cut acrylic in a classy wooden base. Just an idea. Also looks a little bit like a tissue box, maybe it could dispense them and the tissues could be the waves? So you can cry about how flat the surf is about there. 🤪 I can’t help but wonder if there is some surf data you could get from the internet to make this lamp /also/ tell you when there are real waves. Worth a bit of research.
3. Hah so if you ignore it, the plant can hear the water, but can’t have any? I am reminded of those little fountains folks can have https://www.amazon.com/s?k=entryway+fountain+indoor maybe you could turn one of these on and off. Looks like you found it but just to be sure we’re talking about the same soil sensor: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4026
Please hit me up with questions and more thoughts if you still need help deciding!