For my plush night light, I used my previous word “chandelier” to come up with a night light that can both act as a hanging light and a portable light source for trips to the bathroom during the night. When I wake up at night, it is too dark to traverse the hallways safely to the bathroom without a light source. As a result, I often bring my phone with me to use as a guiding light. Interestingly, I found that I am not alone, and many people experience this inconvenience too. I decided to solve this problem with my plush candelabra chandelier. When you wake up in the middle of the night, you can pull down on the hanging candelabra, detach it, and use it as a light source while walking around in your home at night. I named it the “Midnight Candelabra” since it is used in the late hours of the evening.
Although it was not a smooth ride to the finish line, I was able to get my candelabra to light up in a different way than I initially set out to. My initial plan was to be able to squeeze the handle to activate the LEDs using a conductive steel fiber. I felted the fiber to create a conductive sensor that is activated by squeezing it. However, I could not get the piece to consistently activate the code so I had to brainstorm other solutions to light my LEDs.
In the meantime, I hooked up my board and wires to a potentiometer to help determine that my code was working properly. I decided another good option would be to use a button switch which could be activated by squeezing the handle of the candelabra. Once I soldered all my wires and LED’s together, the push button would not activate. Although all my connections, code, and soldering were correct, the button still would not budge. I tried 2 different types of buttons which still would not activate the LEDs. As a result, I had to let go of my idea of activating it by squeezing the handle and use the battery pack as a switch instead. If I were to move forward with this project, I would explore other sensor options that would allow me to keep the electronic guts inside the plush candelabra.
Here is my final code:
const int button = 10; // Analog input pin that the potentiometer is attached to
int sensorValue; // value read from the sensor
const int ledPin = 6;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(button, INPUT);
//pinMode(9, INPUT_PULLUP);
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
sensorValue = digitalRead(button);
Serial.print(“sensor = “);
Serial.println(sensorValue);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
if (sensorValue == 1)
{ //change the value depending on the sensor’s read in serial monitor
Serial.println(“leds triggered”);
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
delay(5000);
}
delay(100);
}
