In this guide, I'll share the simplest steps to set up a video kiosk using a Raspberry Pi 5, a HyperPixel rectangular touch screen, and a 3D printed case. I thought about using off-the-shelf video players, but I decided to go with a Raspberry Pi so I could potentially repurpose it for some other project later. I'm writing this for you and for future Charlyn as well. 😄

Materials Needed

• HyperPixel4 rectangular touch screen - a beautiful hi-res screen!
• Raspberry Pi 5 - either 4GB or 8GB RAM will do fine
• 3D printed case for the Raspberry Pi 5 and HyperPixel screen

Steps

1. Install the Latest Raspberry Pi OS

To get started, use the Raspberry Pi Imager since it's the easiest way to install the OS. Download the Raspberry Pi Imager from the official Raspberry Pi website. Once installed, open the Imager, select "Choose OS," and pick the latest Raspberry Pi OS (Bookworm). Insert your microSD card, select it under "Choose Storage," and then click "Write."

If you need more details, refer to the official Raspberry Pi documentation for how to setup your Raspberry Pi

You'll either need to setup an SSH connection to continue, or attach an HDMI monitor and keyboard to your Pi to continue.

2. Set Up HyperPixel4

To configure your HyperPixel4 touch screen, you need to edit the /boot/firmware/config.txt file. Open this file in a text editor and add the following lines to the end:

[all]
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-dpi-hyperpixel4
dtparam=rotate=180

This configuration enables the HyperPixel display and sets it to rotate 180 degrees. Restart your Pi for the changes to take effect:

sudo reboot

After restarting, you should see your Hyperpixel display the Raspberry Pi graphical desktop.

3. Optional: Change Screen Orientation

If you want to change the screen orientation, you can do so through the Raspberry Pi's graphical interface. Navigate to the Pi menu, select "Screen Configuration," right-click on the DPI screen, and choose "Orientation" followed by "Inverted."

4. Create a Video Kiosk Service

To set up your Raspberry Pi to play a list of videos in a loop, you need to create a new systemd service. This service will use VLC to play the videos.

Create a new file called /etc/systemd/system/videokiosk.service and add the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=videokiosk

[Service]
User=casually-glowy
Environment="DISPLAY=:0"
ExecStart=/usr/bin/vlc -Rf --loop /home/casually-glowy/vids/app-demo.mov /home/casually-glowy/vids/cute-cube.mov /home/casually-glowy/vids/innards.mov /home/casually-glowy/vids/tiny-cube.mov
WorkingDirectory=/home/casually-glowy
Restart=always
RestartSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

• Replace casually-glowy with your actual username and update the list of video file paths as needed.

5. Enable and start the service with the following commands:

sudo systemctl enable videokiosk.service
sudo systemctl start videokiosk.service

This service configuration tells the Raspberry Pi to start VLC in fullscreen mode and loop through the specified video files. If VLC crashes or stops, the service will automatically restart it after 30 seconds.

Conclusion

That's it! You now have the simplest video kiosk using a Raspberry Pi 5, a HyperPixel rectangular touch screen, and a custom 3D printed case. Your Raspberry Pi is now configured to play videos in a loop, making it an ideal setup for showing your video content in booths or conferences or art shows. This was a great upgrade for my exhibit. I used 4 of these displays at my Casually Glowy exhibit at Open Sauce 2024 and lots of folks seemed to like it, so I wanted to share how you can make one as well. Thanks for being here, and I hope you find this useful!

One of the first laser cutting techniques I experimented with was edge lighting engraved acrylic. It's used quite commonly for laser manufactured products but it turns out, it's quite fun to incorporate it into jewelry.

Designs like this would benefit from a level of graphic and iconography design that I'm not quite proficient at yet, but I've been able to produce some wearable glowy goodness even with simple shapes. Being able to fill a surface area with imagery that is much, much larger than the LED itself means that I can use tiny LEDs and tiny batteries for a compact, elegant build. The illusion of shaped light floating in space is quite magical, so this is an area I really want to explore more of.

Here are some of my jewelry designs that use this technique.

"Get out of your own way" earrings

These earrings were inspired by the wisdom of my friend and fellow mentor Krissie Mcmenamin. She gave me the tools to get outta my own dang way – learn to acknowledge the practiced inner critic that says "you're not good enough", change my self narrative to say "maybe I am tho" and just keep getting a little better each day. These earrings are a physical reminder, and a tangible gift to express my appreciation for her influence on my growth.

Ginko leaf ring

Fun fact: the Ginko Biloba tree is the last descendant of an ancestry of trees that first appeared about 290 million years ago. This bold design inspired by this leaf is one of my favorites 😍. The main spiral body whips out quite far on one end to a small battery pack (which I originally found out about on mixtela's youtube project) and flares out the other end into a ginko leaf engraved into clear arcylic. The result is a statement piece, with seemingly no visible power source. I love how the industrial aesthetic of the spring-shaped body blossoms out into an organic leaf. Definitely a great reminder for me to aspire towards more loud and grand designs.

Stealth Filipino

Speaking of bold, this ring definitely fits the bill. I had an urge to design something filipino-related when I made this. While it ended up looking like a cybernetic butterfly of sorts instead of the rays of the Philippine flag, I quite like that it is a bit ambiguous. I don't often mention the fact that I grew up in the Philippines and immigrated to the US when I was in my college years, mostly because it's usually not the focus of my art, but also mostly to "blend in".  This ring design explored what it would feel like to connect my art to that part of my life. TBD on whether I'd do that more often, but I did like how this one turned out!

Thanks for reading. Subscribe to this blog for more (occasional) content! And if this post inspired you in some way, I’d love to hear from you, I’m @chardane on Instagram. Also, if you see me being casually glowy at Open Sauce 2024 or Teardown 2024, please come say hi!

I am on a never-ending quest to make more Casually Glowy jewelry. One design challenge I often contend with in this journey is preventing light glare.

This happens when a point of light is too bright and might even cause a recoiling reaction from a viewer, which is definitely not the effect that I want to achieve. I want someone to look at these pieces of jewelry and think "oh wow" and keep looking in awe, instead of "ah my eyes!" 👀 and look away in pain 😅. This is often solved with some sort of diffusion layer, and that is a fun design challenge in itself because spreading light across a medium evenly (and with purpose) is a matter of material choice, physics, and a bit of cleverness.

So when I discovered the existence of these LED filaments, made to emit a 360 degree glow without external diffusion and imitate the warmth of a vintage light bulb, I was immediately in love! A continuous unbroken line of light is a magical thing and makes me think about space travel and fantastical tech. These filaments can be bent to almost any shape you can imagine. If you apply the minimum voltage of 3V (for short lengths), these LEDs  emit a soft enough glow to be bright but not glare-y. It opened an entire realm of design possibilities, and I was absolutely ecstatic.

Here's a closer look at some jewelry I've been able to make with these LEDs.

Retro-futuristic ring

This ring was the first time I was featured on the cover of Make: magazine! You can download Vol. 85 to learn more about the entire process of how to recreate this ring in great detail. I absolutely love how this simple design turned out to be so compelling. I sometimes dream of seeing it in the sands of Dune or on some mathematical tech in Foundations.

Viking Knit necklace

I first heard about this Viking Knit technique from a fellow maker during a conference. It's a method of weaving metal wire and is actually quite an enjoyable process. It provided a protective and beautifully elegant cage around this delicate LED filament. I love how casually I can wear this piece. The battery holder functions as a clasp, and although it needs a bit of improvement, I'm quite alright with it for now.

Abstract filament necklace

This abstract design was a result of playing and procrastinating. It has survived more friend brunches and office days than it had any right to, given how fragile these filaments can be. It's quite easy to wear, and is a versatile enough design to pair with any outfit.

Art deco sconce necklace

I designed this to try to overcome some of the inherent fragility of these filaments. The resin encases the entire filament so that you can still appreciate the glow from all angles while keeping it protected. The design is inspired by art deco wall sconces, proving that inspiration can come from anywhere 😄.

Bonus: Laser cut stands

For the Casually Glowy exhibit, I wanted to showcase these jewelry pieces in a way that felt authentic and unique to my style. I also wanted to keep them relatively easy to transport since I was going to be showing these pieces in at least two locations. The stand designs that I came up with are playful and colorful, using only a single acrylic standoff. I painted the engraved letters to make them stand out more and changed around the color combos to match the aesthetic of the piece it holds. It also has a magnetic strip on the back side to hold the coin cell batteries when they are not installed. I absolutely love how these turned out!

That's it! Thanks for reading. Subscribe to this blog for more (occasional) project content, and reach out on Instagram @chardane if this post inspired you in some way! Also, if you see me being casually glowy at Open Sauce 2024 or Teardown 2024, please come say hi!

My obsession with making rings started one day in my messy workshop. I was a bit depressed, unable to walk because of a knee injury. I had just been feeling well enough to step into the chaotic space, when a glint of gold caught my eye. It was a piece of 1.8mm brass rod — leftover from a workshop where i had learned about circuit sculpture. Right next to it was some LED Sequins from Adafruit. I thought it was curious that the gold tone of brass matched the gold tone of the sequin. Then, a lightning of an idea struck my brain, and i was literally giggling as I grabbed my solder and started to work. I wish I was exaggerating. That day, I made my very first glowing circuit sculpture ring.

Ever since then, my intrusive thoughts have been around ring designs. I find the ring form factor to be a fun challenge because of how compact the electronic and ornamental parts must be. This size constraint is great creative fodder, and whenever I come across some new format of LED or some novel brass shape, my first thought is always “oooo pretty 😍”  often followed closely by “can I put that into a ring?”

These set of of rings are in the Casually Glowy 2024 Exhibit, and they are some of my most favorite designs. Let me tell you about a couple of them.

Glowstitch ring

My incredible maker friend Stephanie Piper made these LED strips she calls Glowstitch LEDs. She designed them to be machine sewable onto fabrics, unlike the rest of the existing sewable LEDs on the market which require hand-sewing. It turns out, they can also function well when (carefully) integrated into brass jewelry. I often love deviating from the intended purpose of materials, so this was extra fun.

Tesseract Cube ring

I had been experimenting with integrating LEDs into resin infused with mica powder to evenly diffuse light into a 3D shape. At the same time, I had also found out about this incredible project from mixtela’s youtube channel and was obsessed with the tiiiiny battery pack that was used there. These ingredients came together to form the Tesseract Cube ring, which I believe is one of my easiest-to-wear designs, although the battery life is very short at less than an hour. One day I’d like to figure out how to make this better.

Celestial Sphere

Sometimes, I get ideas that are so pervasive that I have to bring them to life, even if the process might end up being incredibly frustrating. But hey, no pain no gain, or something like that. This ring was made with a brass tube where I drilled a tiny hole, and pushed the leads of an LED through. Sounds simple, but I can assure you that it was a day filled with swearing and a bit of crying. I didn’t think ahead, so the resin sphere centerpiece had to be cast after the LED was installed within the brass tube, which was its own special hell. Thank goodness that the result was quite worth it.

I have made a TON of other rings over the past few years. Here are a few more that I still enjoy:

• The one who dared
• Bending study (this one was featured in Hackspace!)
• Double Helix
• Twisted Gem
• 01 or 10

I'll definitely keep making more rings to help make the world just a tiny bit more glowy ✨

Bonus: Ring Stands

For this exhibit, I had to figure out how to prevent the toil of having to change out the coin cell batteries on the 27 (!) pieces of jewelry on display often. Some rings with a single LED would likely be fine for an entire day on a 1220 coin cell, but others, like the Glowstitch ring, would need multiple battery changes. So I made some custom 3d printed ring stands with a lasercut base. The base has the ring title engraved on it, and the battery within is a 2032 coin cell that provides an edge-lit glow to the title as well as extended battery power for the ring. I still have 27 coin cell batteries to replace, but hopefully I won't have to do it as often.

Thanks for reading. Subscribe to this blog for more (occasional) content! And if this post inspired you in some way, I’d love to hear from you, I’m @chardane on Instagram. Also, if you see me being casually glowy at Open Sauce 2024 or Teardown 2024, please come say hi!

Hello friends! I haven't written here in a while but I hope this post gives me the momentum to do more posts. Thanks for being here, I appreciate you 💖! Now let's talk about this quick make – a magic button for the raspberry pi!

The Raspberry Pi is a great platform for making your own DIY devices, especially when you need something small and more compact than a regular portable computer. The thing is, they need to be shutdown properly to help make sure that your filesystem doesn't get corrupted.

I'm preparing a couple of Raspberry Pi's for an upcoming event (more on that later!) and I wanted a super easy way to shut these devices down safely without having to click around or type anything.

So I came up with this tiny USB device – a button that you can click that can pull up the terminal and type out the shutdown command for you! The best part is, the board is off-the-shelf from Adafruit: a Neokey trinkey!

The code for this board takes advantage of the default keyboard shortcut for pulling up the terminal on the default Raspberry Pi OS, which is ctrl + alt + t. I've only tested this on the latest RPi OS (Bookworm) but I believe it works for other Linux versions as well.

What I loved about it was that I could use any mechanical keyboard switch, so it could be as clickety-clackity as I wanted it to be! I settled on one of my fave switches, which happens to be on my dream keyboard I use daily.

Now I can simply plug this via USB, press the button, et voila! Easy safe shutdown, usable across multiple Raspberry Pi devices. It's like using a car key, but it causes a shut down instead of a start up and has less vroom vroom noises. 🏎️

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A post shared by Charlyn G (@chardane)

If you need to make one yourself, here's the code I wrote! I've referenced the original Adafruit tutorials in the gists themselves. If you somehow cannot view the embedded code snippet below, here's a link.

The file boot.py will be run first, and it will prevent the CIRCUITPY drive from appearing as a USB drive unless you're pressing and holding the button while you plug it into the USB port. This makes it so that you can simply plug and remove without having to eject. Then code.py runs, which contains all of the logic to:

1. Trigger the keyboard shortcut for the terminal: ctrl + alt + t
2. Waits one second to let the terminal pop up
3. Type the shutdown command: sudo shutdown -h now

This project was so easy because of these tutorials, check them out for more details, especially if you want to learn more about CircuitPython:

Customizing USB Devices in CircuitPython

You can now enable or hide the USB devices that CircuitPython provides. You can also define new custom HID devices to emulate a digitizer, gamepad, joystick, or other special input device.

Adafruit Learning SystemDan Halbert

Adafruit NeoKey Trinkey

NeoKey Trinkey, the circuit board with a Trinket M0 heart, a NeoPixel glow, and a Cherry MX-compatible key for input.

Adafruit Learning SystemKattni Rembor

That's it! I hope this helps someone who needs some magic in their life ✨. If you make one of these, please let me know by tagging me @chardane on Instagram. Subscribe below for more (occasional) creative makes like this.

Also! I'll be exhibiting my art pieces at Open Sauce 2024 in SF, and Teardown 2024 in Portland, OR! If you're going to be at these events as well, please do let me know, I would love to meet you.

Thanks for reading, friend. 🥰

Hackaday Supercon 2019 was, to put it lightly, an absolutely life changing experience for me. Among the many incredible works of art toted and worn by their very creators, I got to see and behold the absolutely mind-blowing works of Greg Davill, Fred Temperton and Piotr Esden-Tempski from 1bitsquared – custom PCBs that form a 3D geometric shape.

Greg made a really cool icosahedron with triangle PCBs (2000+ hand soldered LEDs my goodness):

2,400 LED icosahedron (20 sided)

A tennis ball sized, 20 sided, LED clad, regular polyhedronIntroduction The major challenge of making a smaller LED cube in my opinion is the LED panels. Commercially available panels are designed for video walls and typically made at 64x64 pixel as a minimum size. This seems to be a good trade off…

Greg Davill's Projects

Fred made a really fantastic tiny cube:

And Piotr made a stunning HUGE cube!

These projects and others like it were a gorgeous trend in the maker community: A lot of people made their own renditions of a 3D shape made of LEDs. Jiri Praus even made an absolutely ultimate version: an LED sphere made with precisely-bent brass wires. The build process is incredibly intricate, shared in all its glory here:

The beginnings of a dream

Now, 2019 was the year I really went deep into learning and making things. I was surrounded by all these inspiring wonderful projects, and I REALLY wanted to make one of my own, but there was a problem: I didn't know how to make custom PCBs, and I also didn't know how to hand solder brass wires to make a perfect sphere. To be honest, I still do not have those skills today 😅

Shortly after witnessing the LED cube trend, I saw the MOST adorable LED matrix, which I immediately thought could be made into a cube:

Adafruit DotStar High Density 8x8 Grid - 64 RGB LED Pixel Matrix

Do not eat this LED grid just because it is so colorful and bite-sized! This is the tiniest little LED grid we could make, with 64 full RGB color pixels in a square that is only 1″ by 1″ square (thats 25.4mm x 25.4mm for you metric-lovers). Best of all, these are little DotStar LEDs, with built in P…

Adafruit LogoAdafruit Industries

But again, I didn't have enough skills AND I couldn't find a microcontroller small enough to make it happen. So, this LED cube dream stayed in the project backlog for years. In the meantime, I made a 2D capacitive touch necklace because I couldn't resist how deliciously glowy this matrix is! I even wrote an Adafruit guide for it:

DotStar Fortune Necklace with Bluetooth and Touch

Light up your next party or zoom call with this modern necklace that looks subtle and simple at first glance, but turns into a versatile light show with a touch or a tap. This necklace is made with the adorable DotStar LED Matrix and the ItsyBitsy nrf52840 so you can customize your style over blueto…

Adafruit Learning SystemCharlyn G

A glimmer of hope for the procrastinator

Fast forward to 2022, and Adafruit comes out with two things: the teeny tiny QT Py form factor in an ESP32-S3 wifi flavor, and a matching charger add-on board that keeps everything super compact. When these came out, dear reader, I was disproportionately ecstatic! I had managed to put off learning KiCad and how to make my own circuit boards long enough for someone to come out with the perfect parts I'd want to use for an LED cube project. Sometimes, procrastination works out fine.

There was only one thing missing: a battery small enough to fit inside a roughly 1.25" x 1.25" x 1.25" cube along with the QT Py and charger add-on. I scoured DigiKey and finally found the holy grail: a battery from TinyCircuits that was basically the same overall dimensions as the LED matrix.

So, I had a microcontroller, a charger board, some LED matrices, the perfect tiny battery, plus enough electronics, CircuitPython and Fusion360 skills. The pieces were falling into place, I just had to put them all together.

How the dream came true (slowly)

This was my first attempt, I hope you're ready for this – tada! 😅

I had to get a good sense of the size, and also wanted to get a feel for whether or not these parts will approximately fit together. I did the quickest frame model I could whip up and super-glued everything together. It doesn't look like much, but physically being able to hold these pieces together was important to the process of figuring everything out.

I made A LOT of iterations to this model. I had to figure out warping issues, press-fit tolerance issues, how to integrate a switch in, the best print orientation, etc.

Ngl, I was also mildly terrified of stuffing electronics into such a tiny space, and somewhere along the way I completely scrapped an initial Fusion360 file and started over. Even so, I actually loved every grueling second of this creative process.

I worked on this cube on and off for a few weeks, until I finally I had a good working version that I was happy with. THEN, I dropped it. 😅

The beauty of 3D printing, of course, is that I was able to print another one and repair it! 🥳  Catastrophe averted.

Getting over the imposter syndrome (just this one time)

So, I had a fully functioning cube that was connected to the internet. I even made a little webpage for it that could be used to easily send both a text message to the cube AND draw a little 8x8 pixel art on the top surface of the cube.

But still, I found it really had to gather the courage to email the Adafruit team about writing a guide for this project. I had convinced myself that this wasn't cool enough to write about. After all, I didn't make any custom PCBs, so like, is this even a real LED cube??

Whenever I have moments like this, I remind myself that it's better to gather data about my world than to keep speculating about it. So, I send over this demo video to Adafruit, just to see if they'd be interested. I figure, worst case is that they say it's not that interesting, so I just get to write about it on my blog and that's it.

PT from Adafruit emailed me back and said they thought it was so cute and that I should indeed write up a guide for it! Data collected, myth busted, maker heart absolutely REJOICED! 🥳

I don't think I'll ever completely get rid of my imposter syndrome, but I sure as heck can try, every single time.

The Learn Guide, finally!

And so dear reader, thank you for coming with me on this journey. I proudly present this Adafruit Learn Guide about how to make your own LED cube! I hope you enjoy it.

Tiny LED WiFi Companion Cube

This LED cube is powered by CircuitPython on an ESP32-S3 QT Py, with an accelerometer connected via the STEMMA QT port. It’s easy to customize what is displayed on the cube and change the attached STEMMA board to give this cube a whole new set of magic powers!

Adafruit Learning SystemCharlyn G

Special thanks to Anne and Dan for helping me review the guide and the code for this project!

Let me know if you make it one yourself, or make your own version, or if you already have one made in a completely different way! I'd love to be inspired by you.

Hit me up on Twitter or Insta, and subscribe using the form below if you'd be so inclined to see more of my creative projects. Thanks again!!

It's a pendant made with @adafruit LED sequins, a 2032 battery holder, brass pieces and hand-bent brass wires.

I based this design on a 2032 battery holder that I could hide behind a thick brass disc. The golden tabs on the battery holder made it easy to incorporate visually. It took a few design iterations (much more than pictured below) to find one I liked enough to make - the middle design became the final one!

I’ve accepted that my soldering is better when hidden 🤪 so I printed out the reverse of the design and hid the solder joints behind the pendant. I used a combination of kapton tape and double sided tape over the design to keep the wires in place & a tiny paintbrush to dab liquid flux on the hand-bent wires.

I really wanted this pendant to:
✅ look good with or without the LEDs lit up
✅ be heavy enough to drape like a regular necklace
✅ hide the battery!

And I think I’m getting better at soldering these things! A little buffing and polishing really brings out the gold and makes it look clean.

Here’s me wearing it to demonstrate how long the chain is!  I tend to like necklaces this length. A minor issue is that the chain gets twisted easily but I can probably attach some sort of bar on the chain later to fix this if it becomes annoying enough

That’s it! Really quite pleased with how this turned out, I’m going to wear it around an upcoming conference, hopefully it doesn’t break 🤞🏽

Gonna try to make the other designs next time!

Let me know if this is something you try for yourself, I'm @chardane on twitter and insta! And if you'd like, you can subscribe below at the bottom of this page for updates on my projects here! 💖

Original Twitter post:

My 2 yr old nephew, named Forrest, is having a camping themed bday party! His parents love the outdoors, so this was very on brand for them. They asked me to make a “national park” sign for the occasion, and I really enjoyed making it! Links to resources to make your own are all below.

This was the first time I've made a sign like this, and I just made it up as I went along. For a while I was really overthinking a lot of the details:

Should I buy walnut plywood?

Oh maybe it should be ebony plywood.

Wait I should also get a japanese saw to make the legs

Hey there's such a thing as african mahogany plywood!

But this year, I promised myself that I'd ask one question whenever I start googling for the "perfect" materials – "What if I already have everything I need, right here?" My intention is to spend less, but also try to ship less things across the globe.

Turns out, I already had a bunch of materials I could use!

1. Birch plywood
2. Laserable MDF sheets (for the "Forrest" letters)
3. Dark wood stain (specifically the color "Kona")
4. ColorFabb woodfill PLA filament (for the legs!)

The laser cut + engraved sign

I designed this sign in Adobe Illustrator. The "Forrest" letters are lasercut as solid cutouts to make them stand out, together with the little badge tree logo. These are painted with white acrylic paint, then I stained the rest of the sign with the dark wood stain I dug out of the back of the crafts cabinet.

I was supposed to avoid staining the "camgrounds + scenic trails" bottom part, but I messed up, so I just cut and engraved that bottom piece and stuck it in front. Happily, this actually ended up giving the entire thing more depth!

The typeface for the engraved letters is conveniently called "National Park", and it is free to use because according to their website: Our National Parks belong to the people, so this typeface should too. Lovely!

Check out the video of how I painted the engraved letters with some water-diluted white acrylic paint, it's quite satisfying:

The 3D printed legs

Now, I also had some long wooden dowels, and if I was a more experienced woodworker, I could have carved legs out of that wood. But, as it is, my Fusion 360 skills are better than my woodworking skills, so I got to work designing a simple post that could be printed twice, out of the ColorFabb Woodfill filament that I've always wanted to use. Win-win!

I split the model such that the two lengthwise halves of the post can be printed horizontally and then glued together – this print orientation gave the post enough structural strength. The assembled post just slips right into conical base. Finally, I drilled holes and used a couple of M5 screws and M5 locknuts to secure these legs to the sign. Voila!

Make your own!

If you'd like to customize this sign and make it your own, check out this Printables page for the 3d print files and the lasercut vectors. I'd love to see what you make, tweet at me or tag me on insta if you do! Also, subscribe below if you haven't yet 😄!

If you know even a little bit about me, you know that I love glowy LED things. So when it was time to customize my desk setup, I came across the Cyberboard R3 by AngryMiao and I knew that this was my destiny. I mean, it's pink and it has a huge LED matrix 🤷🏻‍♀️ . This is a little different from my usual posts, but I'm hoping that it will maybe inspire someone to liven up their daily desk life!

Keyboard setup

After a long search, I paired the Cyberboard R3 with these Notion keycaps designed by biip, whose keycap designs I've admired for a while. To top it off, I paired it with a BMO artisan keycap from AstroKeycaps – the perfect robot companion for such a futuristic board. They don't always have it in stock, so watch their Etsy shop for more releases. If I were to guess, I think it is 3D printed on an SLA printer with resin, and then primed and painted. Excellent paint job and production!

I also really wanted a deskmat that would pair with the keyboard and keycap colors, while being interesting but not toooo visually noisy. Etsy is filled with all kinds of over-the-top designs, but I finally settled on this unique modern one from ElysiumMats (pictured in the hero image of this post).

And in case you were curious, I actually tried two switches on this keyboard, both from The Key Company, ran by awesome humans Mintlodica and team! First I had the Star Marble Soda Switches (OG) mainly because the turquoise blue color fits in with the "Budapest Hotel" color palette that the Cyberboard R3 was inspired by. These switches were smooth and linear and I liked them, but after a couple weeks though I switched (heh) to these Dragonfruit switches instead because I really wanted a more tactile feel. Since the Cyberboard is "hotswap", switching switches was easy!

Last detail for the enthusiasts: I used C3 Equalz screw-in stabilizers, also from The Key Company. The stem and housing of the "Salmon" color variant for these stabs are preeettyyyy darn close to the case/plate color of this board, which made it really satisfying to see.

Macropad setup

Ok, I've actually never had a macropad before, so when Adafruit released their RP2040 Macropad I had to give it a shot. The "plate" for this macropad has gorgeous golden lines on it, and if I put regular keycaps on it, the design would have been hidden away underneath. So, I designed my own!

The keycaps you see above are made with a 3D printed body and a lasercut top. I call them "smol" keycaps.  You can download all the files needed to make your own keycaps on the Printables page. I added this gold rotary encoder knob to really bring out the gold from the switch plate.

Macropad software

This macropad is CircuitPython compatible, which means it's a highly customizable keypad, probably more customizable than a lot of other ones out there. If you just want to use it as a macropad like I did though, there's a couple steps you'd need to take. Roll up your sleeves, I promise it won't take that long :D

1. Update the CircuitPython version on the board to the latest.
2. Download the project bundle in this guide
3. Copy over the contents of the project bundle into your CIRCUITPY drive (lib folder, code.py file, and macros folder).

Now, the files inside the macros folder are different "layers" you can switch between using the rotary encoder. You can keep just the ones you like, or create new files with the same format to customize what each keypress should do. There's more details in the original guide so have at it!

As a last step, you'll probably want to be able to unplug your macropad from your computer without having to eject it everytime. So here's what you need to do:

1. Create a new file called boot.py in your CIRCUITPY drive.
2. Copy the following code into boot.py (directly copied from this guide):

import storage
import board, digitalio

# On the Macropad, pressing a key grounds it. You need to set a pull-up.
# If not pressed, the key will be at +V (due to the pull-up).
button = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.KEY12)
button.pull = digitalio.Pull.UP

# Disable devices only if button is not pressed.
if button.value:
   storage.disable_usb_drive()

Now, whenever you want to edit the files inside macros folder or code.py, you'll have to press and hold the bottom-rightmost key while plugging in your macropad via USB. But if you're not pressing that key when you plug it in, you'll be able to just use the macropad like normal and won't be able to edit the code inside (which means no need to eject it when unplugging).

That's it! I hope this post gives you some inspo for your desk setup – it's nice when something that you see everyday gives you a bit of joy. Let me know if you found this useful, I'm @chardane on Twitter and Insta!

All the work Adafruit has been doing around floppy disks made me wish I still had my collection from way back when. So, the next best thing is to have my SD cards cosplay as floppies! 💖🤣

I'm hoping that these little costumes will give you a little bit of joy 🥰 ! Here are the PNG and SVG files for it. I haven't been able to find a sticker manufacturer that can print them yet (turns out, anything smaller than 1" x 1" is hard to cut accurately), BUT some vinyl sticker paper and a steady scissor hand will get you some cute mini floppies.

Enjoy!

You’ve probably always wondered “gee, I wish someone would use an adorably soft robot cat to teach me about CircuitPython and IoT”, right? Right?? 😍

Well friends, my first video course is out, and it is exactly that! You'll learn about servos, CircuitPython, MQTT (a common internet of things protocol), and how to hook all of these up so that you can make the robot cat dance when the ISS flies overhead a location. A series of cat videos, but make it educational 😸

My hope is that this course will give you the fundamentals you need to get started exploring your own internet of things projects! It does assume you already know a bit of Python, but there's no hardware knowledge required – it walks through the practical steps of building this robot cat, and explains everything along the way.

Check it out on LinkedIn Learning for $34.99, but if you use the link in this LinkedIn post, you should be able to access the course for free for 24 hours after clicking the link. 🥳

Materials

For your convenience, here are the things you'll need to go through the course!

Main components

• 1 x Adafruit Metro M4 Express Airlift
• 1 x 8mm Neopixel LED (5mm works too)
• 2 x MG90 Servos
• 1 x 1000uF capacitor
• 1 x cat plush (should have enough room for servos to fit)

Testing/Wiring

• 1 x Half size breadboard
• Pin-to-pin jumper wires
• Pin-to-port jumper wires

Prototyping components

• 1 x Adafruit Proto Shield kit
• 1 x 3-pin 0.1" pitch terminal block
• 1 x 4 AA battery holder with plug
• 4 x AA batteries
• Right angle headers
• Set of 22 AWG solid core wires
• Ribbon cable (for the neopixel)
• Heat shrink tubing (recommend this one)

Prototyping Tools

• Soldering Iron- I use the Hakko FX-888D
• Solder - I use this 60/40 rosin core, but lead-free is great too
• Safety glasses - I use these stylish ones
• Solder fume extractor - I use this awesome Kotto one
• Silicone soldering mat (to protect your work surface) - I use this one
• Panavise Jr (to secure the Proto Shield for soldering)
• Wire strippers
• Flush cutters
• 1.4 mm flathead screw driver (for the terminal block) - I use this set

Learners can also instead choose to get LadyAda's Electronic Toolkit, which will include many of the tools above and more!

Behind the scenes

This video course was filmed in 2021, and since the studios were still closed, the filming location ended up in the most exotic place we could find: my apartment.

The team from LinkedIn Learning sent me all the filming equipment in seven large boxes, including a separate dedicated laptop for remote control of the main camera. Filming ran for 5 days, and the entire team remotely choreographed the set from ✨inside✨ the dedicated laptop. Technology is magical.

This has been a labor of love, and I'm so grateful for my entire LinkedIn Learning production team for making it happen. If you've been looking to dive right into making internet connected projects, and you know a little bit of Python, you might enjoy this course. Let me know on Twitter @chardane if you do check it out. Enjoy!

PS: can you spot where the robot cat is in every video of this course? No one has noticed so far, let me know if you do 🌈

One of my good friends, Amit, owns a massive mug collection. And they're not just any mugs – these are beautiful, clever, and unique, just like he is! So, right before I met up with him for the first time in literal years, I made him this glowy coaster to compliment his collection.

It's made up of laser cut layers with an Adafruit Trinket M0 powering a Neopixel LED strip, and held together with gold m3 machine screws and ✨love✨ (but mostly machine screws)

To diffuse the lights, I used a couple layers of transparent vellum paper (you can see it top right above), and for easier assembly I cut those pieces out with my Cricut Maker so that the screw holes would line up.

I actually had to iterate quite a bit on each layer, and had to use a combination of different acrylic thicknesses so that it was as thin as it could be while still being able to house all the electronics. Below is a picture of what I eventually ended up with:

I am absolutely IN LOVE with this pearl acrylic, I think it really gives a subtle touch of elegance to this project, and I love how it pairs with the peach acrylic too.

As you can see above, I arranged the Neopixel strip so that the LEDs were facing inward, and it turns out that having the battery right in the middle didn't take away from the diffused effect too much!

The coaster is rechargeable and can be turned off with a simple switch. Maybe one day I'll get fancier with some wireless charging and temperature sensing. 😍

I wanted to use machine screws but also wanted to keep it as thin as I could, so I used these heat-set m3 inserts embedded in the bottom acrylic layer so that I didn't need to use nuts. In retrospect, it took a lot of iteration to get the holes sized just right, and I could have avoided this step since I eventually put rubber feet that were thicker than machine nuts anyway? BUT, you can't deny that it is sleek af ✨

I also spent quite a bit of time trying to make sure that the flathead screws had a countersunk look to them. I wasn't entirely successful as you can see below, but it's pretty good results!

The rainbow animation is a classic from Adafruit's CircuitPython Neopixel Essentials, and I didn't feel like I had to create anything more elaborate than this. Check out the video below if you want to see the subtle animation in action (click here if the embed isn't working for ya):

Build details

If you wanted to make one yourself, you can follow this circuit diagram to connect the Trinket, M0 Neopixel strip and the LiPo "backpack" to make the battery rechargeable via the microUSB port of the Trinket M0

The code is written in CircuitPython, mostly taken from CircuitPython Neopixel Essentials. Short and sweet! Check it out here if the embedded code below doesn't show up (this happens on mobile sometimes). If you need more information on CircuitPython and how to use it (v easy i promise), start here!

You can download the vector files for laser cutting from this Thingiverse page!

I had to do a lot of iteration for this project, but I felt like it was important that I celebrate seeing an old friend again. He's always been a source of inspiration for me, and I wanted to show that in some small way.

I put a big red bow on it, and met up with him in one of the outdoor food parks in SF. There was fun, laughter and some good reminsicing. Nothing like a (safe) non-zoom hang out to uplift spirits and deepen friendships!

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the journey. Maybe this will help someone (you?) create a special gift too! Share your creations with me on Twitter, I'm @chardane, and if you want to hear more about my gifting adventures, subscribe to this blog using the big Subscribe button below! 💖

These neon-like LED strips are currently my fave LED strips. They mimic the look of neon lights, but without all the dangerous voltages or glass bending skills required. I've been asked if my background was virtual, which I consider a pretty high compliment. 😄

The letters are held in place by simple 3d printed holders that I specifically designed for the width of this LED strip. Another way to do this would be laser cutting a similar holder, but at the time I didn't have my own laser cutter so this method worked out well!

Let's take a look at how I designed the letters and how I put everything together.

From font, to svg, to 3D print model

Modeling these letters to size was a bit of an iteration process. I used a combination of Fusion360, Adobe Illustrator and a (paid) font called SLF Engineer from Single Line Fonts. I did roughly the following steps:

1. Typed out the word "code" in Illustrator with the single line font, roughly to the size that I thought would be good.
2. Used the "Type -> Create Outlines" feature to turn those letters into vector lines and then exported to SVG.
3. Imported the SVG file into Fusion360 and manually traced splines on top of the SVG outline (couldn't figure out an automatic way to do this).
4. Once the splines were done, I created a rectangle sketch perpendicular to the path, with a width that is as wide as the strip, and height that is about half the depth of the strip.
5. Then, it's just a matter of using the "Sweep" feature so that the rectangles I drew follow the splines to form the letters, and then I used "Shell" to create walls and take the top off the rectangle.
6. Export to STL, slice in Prusa Slicer, and that's it!

Here's a 46 second video that hopefully illustrates the idea a little better:

The tricky part was that SVGs imported into Fusion360 will not have the expected dimensions (i,e, if an SVG square was about 1in x 1in in Illustrator, it would end up being bigger after importing into Fusion360).

Since I was an impatient person, I decided that instead of methodically figuring out how exactly the Illustrator SVG size scales when compared to what the size ended up being in Fusion, I would instead figure out the size I needed by printing out a couple layers of the letter "C" in smaller and smaller sizes until I was satisfied with the size. This is my favorite way of figuring out 3d printing sizes 😅 I ended up using the smallest "c" in the middle.

Each size of C pictured below required me to do steps 1-6 above over and over again. 😅 Not the most efficient way, but it worked!

When that was done, I printed out the rest of the letters in that same size!

The holes that you see in the photo above were actually manually drilled in after the print, because honestly it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to mount the letters onto the leafy background. I thought I was going to use glue, but I decided to use screws instead, since I've learned the hard way that mechanical connections/attachments are vastly superior to glued ones.

Quick test

Impatient Charlyn is impatient, so I cut up some light strips, soldered some wires and tested out what it would look like to convince myself that everything was going to be alright. When I turned this on, I got SO EXCITED! 🥳 It was exactly the motivation I needed to finish what ended up being quite a lot of tedious work. 😅

Mounting the letters

I used some stong recycled cardboard for the backing because that's all I had lying around, AND I didn't need any special equipment to cut it. After cutting up the cardboard to size, I aligned all the letters to what would be their final position, and then made marks for the mounting holes in the letters.

Then, after checking and double checking that all the letters were spaced out just the way I wanted it (it would be hard to change the positions after this step), I drilled into the marks.

Side note: the wireless drill I used was a birthday present from Bryan, and it's just one of those tools that I've happily ended up needing a lot more than I thought I would. 💖

The tricky part was figuring out how to layer in the leafy background pieces. I ended up using some map pins to go through the drilled hole and poked into the fabric of the leafy background so that I could see it on the other side, and then drilled through that. Yes, it was indeed as tedious as it sounds ✨

I used some 3d printed spacers and some very long machine bolts with nuts on the back to secure each of the 12 letters in place.

Wiring and soldering

After mounting the letters, I cut up the LED strips to size and started soldering. I had to carefully cut out a portion of the silicone sheath so that I could actually reach the pads to solder to. I also used green and black wires so that it would blend into the background more easily.

After so much soldering, I fitted the strips into the letter-shaped holders, using silicone caps to secure the ends and help smooth out the light leaks a bit on the ends of the letters.

Now I had to thread the wires from the front to the back. I picked a spot close enough to the end of the letter to be discreet, and just drilled holes straight through.

Here's a closer look at how exactly I threaded those wires through the leafy background. I used a piece of solid core wire to catch the wires through a loop and then pulled the loop through to the back – similar to how you'd thread a needle with a threader tool!

In the end, I ended up with a beautiful chaos of wires. ✨ It was late by that time, so I took a much needed break and cuddled up with my pup Biscuit before tackling the next part.

Powering up!

I woke up to a relaxing long weekend, had a cup of coffee, and was determined to finish! First, I 3d printed the perma-proto feather case from Adafruit (just slightly modified so that both the switch and the barrel jack panel mount holes were on the same side).

Then I soldered up these 2-pin screw-in wire terminals, so that each letter would be connected in parallel to a 12v power supply. The barrel jack panel mount on the left would connect to the power supply, and the toggle switch on the right turns the entire thing on/off.

I was really glad I had waited until morning and had my coffee, because this took a while. On the plus side, it was very easy to reverse any wiring mistake since I could always unscrew the wires. I did not even know that terminals were a thing until a few months into my maker journey, so I highly recommend them to anyone who needs to connect wires to proto boards / PCBs. Please enjoy this timelapse to get an idea of the process.

Finishing up

I designed a simple 3d printed block to be able to hang the entire thing on the wall. Because the backing was just cardboard, the whole thing was quite light! The power box sat in the middle for easy access to the switch.

You've seen how lovely the front of this thing ended up being, but check out how marvelous the back side is! 🙃

And that's it! I created a video call background that I love using everyday, and definitely became an easy conversation starter for meeting complete strangers online. I also added a sleek IKEA letterboard with a PSA (public service announcement) that I planned to switch out every week but actually ended up only changing twice so far. 🤷🏻‍♀️

If you end up making your own, I would LOVE to see it! Or, if you'd like to use these codecodecode lights a your virtual background for your video calls, feel free to use any of the images below 😂

Thanks for coming with me on this journey! If you want to catch any of my next projects, subscribe using the button all the way down there 👇🏽 or follow me on Twitter, @chardane! Join my Patreon for exclusive sneak peeks into my next projects and help me make more delightful glowy creations!

Few years ago I was so lost while learning electronics. Then I found Adafruit guides and it was empowering and exciting! Suddenly, I didn’t feel so dumb or alone. Now, I've gone from lost maker soul to publishing my own Adafruit Learn Guide – it feels incredible to give back to the community that has given me so much. Let's take a quick look at the project!

This is a Bluetooth connected necklace. It has a brass piece that acts as a capacitive touch button, is powered by an ItsyBitsy nrf52840 and the code is written with CircuitPython. The necklace "chain" consists of the wires connecting the pendant to the microcontroller and rechargeable battery hanging behind my neck, and all those wires are hand wrapped with some gold embroidery thread.

This necklace was something i've been wanting to make for a while, ever since I created a similar concept ring that uses the magical Black LED material:

After that project, I began to wonder "what else i could do" with that acrylic, and envisioned using the adorable Dotstar Matrix from Adafruit. But then, the pandemic hit, I went into interview prep mode, and a bunch of projects got backlogged.

Fast forward to 11 months later, I was experimenting with some combinations of brass and acrylic shapes, and things just kind of clicked into place.

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Figuring out the shape I wanted and having beautiful brass pieces to play with gave me so much motivation to go through this project. But after getting all the way to the end of the project, I had so much doubt about whether or not this was going to be interesting enough. Thankfully, I recently have been getting really good at just ignoring my imposter syndrome. With clammy fingers I hit "send" on an email to Adafruit, proposing to write a guide for this project, and the rest is history!

There are lots of people who have said such positive things about this guide (and me 🥺), and I am really grateful for all these wonderful maker friends.

Check out the full guide over at Adafruit!

Dotstar Fortune Necklace with Bluetooth and Touch

Had to do a few steps in this project multiple times just to be able to take photos and write a quality guide – it was all worth it! Thanks for reading through my journey. I hope this guide inspires you to make something beautiful. 💖

I just got myself a shiny new Glowforge laser cutter, and seized the very first excuse I could take to make a gift: My boyfriend's mom's birthday card! I only had a few hours to make it – I didn't think about it until the night before haha 😅. Let's take a look at how I made it.

Special thanks to Glowforge for featuring this make on their Instagram feed! ✨ And thank you so much if you saw this project on there and found this project interesting! See the lights animate in action:

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Step 1: Lasercut!

First, I created a vector design using Affinity Designer, and made sure it featured the birthday girl's name prominently. All the shapes cut nicely on the Glowforge Proofgrade Maple Wood sheet.

I've been enjoying my Glowforge so much, it was a big decision, and I'm really happy about it! 💖 I feel like an entire world of possibilities have opened up, and I'm just getting started. 💪🏼

I've used other lasers before, but somehow have only used laser-safe MDF until now. Hardwood definitely cuts a lot better! 👏🏼

The cut video above includes the sides and the back of the box, which was about 1" in depth. I also went through a few iterations on the side cutouts for the microUSB port and the power switch. This is how it ended up looking post assembly:

Step 2: Assemble the box and knoll

This was my first box cut on this laser, so I didn't think about finger joints. But I had to press on! You can kind of see the rushed little side holes there. To assemble the box, I used wood glue, some clamps, and many silent wishes that it would turn out ok 🙏🏼

Next up, I gathered the parts for a circuit that I knew would be fast and simple to build: Neopixels with an ItsyBitsy M4 Express!

Step 3: Assemble the circuit

Here are the parts I used for this circuit:

1. Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 Express
2. LiPoly Backpack (allows the circuit to be run off a battery and be rechargeable!)
3. Neopixels strip
4. LiPo Battery
5. Switch and wires
6. Double sided tape and hot glue

The circuit diagram above describes how the circuit was put together, but here's a handy dandy table too!

• | USB | 5V |

I soldered the LiPoly Backpack on top of the ItsyBitsy M4 Express, and then soldered the Neopixel connections accordingly.

Then, I cut the trace on the power pinouts of the LiPoly Backpack and soldered a switch. More details about that in the Adafruit learn guide.

I used some double sided tape to stick the Neopixels at the top of the box, some hot glue to secure the switch to the side of the box so that it wont get pushed in, and lined up the microUSB port of the ItsyBitsy M4 so that it's still accessible even after I glue the box together.

Before the cover was glued on top, I glued some translucent vellum paper behind it to diffuse the rainbow appropriately 🌈.

Step 4: Use the rainbow code!

I needed something quick and easy, so I used the code from Adafruit's learn guide for CircuitPython Essentials: Neopixels and modified it ever so slightly. This code is absolutely my favorite bit of rainbow goodness from Adafruit.

Here's a very short summary of how this code is loaded onto the ItsyBitsy M4 Express board:

1. Connect the ItsyBitsy M4 to your computer using a USB data cable.
2. Setup the board to use CircuitPython
3. If you're just getting started, download Mu Editor to make it even easier to edit files on your board. Otherwise, use any other text editor to edit the `code.py` file that should already be on the board
4. Download the latest library bundle and copy over the neopixel.mpy file to the `lib` folder on your board
5. Copy and paste the code in CircuitPython Essentials: Neopixels code and save

If all goes well, your Neopixel strip should be screaming rainbows! 🌈✨

Step 5: Enjoy ✨

Of course, the birthday package wouldn't be complete without a lovely bouquet of flowers! 💐 I'm happy to report that she enjoyed it very much.

Thanks for reading this post! I hope it inspires you to make your own version! Tag me @chardane on Insta and Twitter if you do, I'd love to cheer you on!