Here is a page of ideation sketches I did for the plush nightlight project. I am doing something like the circled sketch. It will be fabricated from felt panels. The bottom will not be sewn together & when spread apart to create a stand, the EL panel will illuminate.
Hey yinz,
The form for my plush nightlight project is inspired by my favorite piece of land sculpture, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty .
I love Robert Smithson’s work – he’s the real artist’s artist (he can write, draw, sculpt, etc). Not only is his work informed by the context of the site, but each piece is dictated by months of research, observation and documentation. His essay about Spiral Jetty is one of the most interesting and genuine things that I’ve read by any visual artist…
Anyway… enough compliments, this post is about me, me, me!
This sketch shows how I feel about Ugz, our favorite floppy, plush boot. Ah, kind of a one-liner, I’m not so into this idea.
Here I’m onto something – the Spiral Jetty Wallet! What if I make a five-foot long wallet that rolls up like a sleeping bag and LEDs illuminate when credit cards are inserted into the pockets?
I don’t really no the answer, but Im going to try it.
I really liked the simplicity of Hobo lantern that I posted earlier and the heartfelt lantern made for Japan. The idea that the lantern can light up people’s mood appeal to me. I want to make a bunny lantern that can function as an arm warmer. The elliptical holes enable this piece to hang from wall to act as a night light, but the shape is such that you can wear it on your arm. There will be a bunny face on the palm side. I thought of this idea while running at the crack of dawn where I really need to pay attention to my surroundings. I didn’t happen to wear anything reflective and since I lost my arm warmers at the last year’s NYC marathon, I thought it would be a good idea to make one for myself.
I am going to make a Firefly Plush toy with a light up bum. I want to use soft materials that so that it feels like a pillow and wings with a mesh like material. The details will be embroider stitched to give it a handmade feel. I will only need a few LEDs and a simple switch so might opt to use a coin cell battery holder. I am not sure if I want to incoporate Arduino but it would be nice to have the LEDs flickr. If I use Arduino I am considering trying RGB LEDs to play with color. Miss Becky, what do you think?
Hello
I would like to make a tree lamp, borrowing from the forms of a tree wrapped to protect itself from frost.
Here is a sketch as well as an inspiration.
Every night I read before I go to sleep, and I’m sick of my bendy-arm reading light. It is simple and functional, but its boring design is getting old, and the arm is difficult to get into a good position.
I looked up alternative reading lights, finding some pretty silly devices, and began to think about designing a fun, plush reading light for myself.
After drawing a penguin and a few other animal-themed ideas that could sit next to me, I thought it might be fun to have a plush hat with built-in connecting arms. What better animal to create than an octopus!
The elongated tentacles make a perfect chin-strap, with a magnetic closure that connects the circuit, lighting up LEDs in its head that shine onto the book from translucent panels. I’m thinking about having multiple sets of connectors (I can have up to four total) that would turn on different colored LEDs. Or I could add LEDs to the other legs as their sucker pads. One Instructable I plan on referencing is how to make a clip-on LED reading lamp.
I hadn’t quite figured out what I could do with a chandelier, but as I’ve decided early on this semester, I wanted to integrate my own culture into as many projects as possible. And as long as it made sense.
As I headed down to Canal Plastics to pick up some acrylic for the project (I had thought of lasercutting them, although in what shapes I didn’t know), I stopped by the quintessential Chinese market in Soho: the Pearl River. In there (they don’t allow photos, unfortunately), I saw a variety of colorful Chinese lanterns and I knew right then I wanted to use them. I just needed to make them look like a chandelier, which, coincidentally, isn’t too far of a stretch since Chinese lanterns are hung in multitudes during the Chinese Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the Lunar New Year:
Chinese lanterns symbolize togetherness, well-being, and good fortune, having been part of the Chinese tradition for at least two thousand years.
I also need to incorporate some embroidery, so I picked out a few paper lanterns with eyelets, so I can put yarn through them. Here’s a photo of my embroidery in progress:
Since lantern were originally used as portable lights (they helped blocked candles from the wind, making them basically an ancient form of flashlights), I wanted the LEDs to mimic the flickering motions of the candle flame. To do that, I plan on modifying the “Blink” code along with the “Button” code to control it:
I’ve been writing a lot of code the past few days, and I finally got the LED to light up when I have email! Above is a photo of my components and some of my coding notes. I’m currently working on the code for the stepper motor, and will attach it to the bread board later today.
The main tutorial that’s been very helpful is this email notifier. I’ve taken their approach, but added extra code for determining how many emails there are and if that number is different from the previous count.
Hello class! I’m excited to share with you my in-progress bicycle brake light. As of now, the housing has been laser-cut and the LEDs are working with a pushbutton. This is illustrated below.
This project is inspired by the recent bicycle/driver related accidents and violence in my hometown. Here is an article describing one of the events. Its always precarious to slow down or stop suddenly while riding in heavy traffic since there is no indication of this with standard lights.
I think I will use the Adafruit tutorial for the FSR sensor which is going to be mounted on the brake lever.
I’m thinking of taking my space creator further for this week’s Arduino project. I’ve spent some time today working with an IR sensor. The most useful link I found to learn the basics of this was a distance calculation project.
Through this, I was able to switch on an LED when the sensor reads an obstacle. I also found this project which details LED-IR led arduino instructions with some helpful links.