Neopixel Lightsaber
The traditional lightsaber from the movies, this lightsaber is powered by Neopixels and an Arduino. This is Rey’s lightsaber from the new movies with a few modifications and it has a special party mode.
Engineer
Adel P.
Area of Interest
Astrophysics, Math, Reading
School
McCallie
Grade
Incoming Sophomore
Exploding Star Light Organ
My starter project is the exploding star light organ. It is powered by 25 LEDs, with 12 red LEDs, 6 green LEDs, and 7 yellow LEDs. It has seven transistors that act as buttons. They turn the current on and off. There are also 11 resistors ranging from 470 ohms to 750 kilohms. There is also an electret microphone that is based on an electrostatic capacitor. There are two IC units. The larger one processes information from the microphone to fast for the human eye to see, so the smaller IC unit slows down the information so we can see the lights. This circuit also has two trimmer resistors or variable resistors. These trimmer resistors can change the frequency of the flashes of light and the brightness of the bulbs. It has four capacitors that store energy so that the circuit can use it. Finally, this project has a 9v battery to power everything. A few problems that I had were with the order of the transistors and the resistors and the amount of soldering that I had to do. There is one transistor that if it is out of place, it will mess up the entire circuit. With the resistors, I had the same problem. I put one in the wrong place, and it wouldn’t work. I also had issues with the soldering. There are a lot of places where if you solder incorrectly, you will cause shorts. I had to be very careful with that. Those are some of the problems I had with this project