John Baichtal - 10 LED Projects for Geeks: Build Light-Up Costumes, Sci-Fi Gadgets, and Other Clever Inventions

BUILD LIGHT-UP COSTUMES, SCI-FI GADGETS, AND OTHER CLEVER INVENTIONS

EDITED BY JOHN BAICHTAL

SAN FRANCISCO

10 LED PROJECTS FOR GEEKS. Copyright 2018 by John Baichtal, Kaas Baichtal, Matthew Beckler, Kristina Durivage, Lenore Edman, Mike Hord, James Floyd Kelly, Michael Krumpus, Windell Oskay, and Adam Wolf.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

ISBN-10: 1-59327-825-X
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-825-0

Publisher: William Pollock
Production Editor: Riley Hoffman
Interior Design: Beth Middleworth
Developmental Editor: Liz Chadwick
Technical Reviewer: Steven Bingler
Copyeditor: Rachel Monaghan
Compositor: Riley Hoffman
Proofreader: James Fraleigh

The following images are reproduced with permission:
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Circuit diagrams and schematics were created using Fritzing (http://fritzing.org/).

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To My Co-Authors, for their Cleverness and Patience. JB

JOHN BAICHTAL has written or edited over a dozen books, including the award-winning The Cult of LEGO (No Starch Press, 2011), LEGO hacker bible Make: LEGO and Arduino Projects (Maker Media, 2012) with Adam Wolf and Matthew Beckler, as well as Robot Builder (Que, 2013) and Hacking Your LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Kit (Que, 2015). John lives in Minneapolis with his wife and three children.

KAAS BAICHTAL became interested in computers and electronics around age 12, taking every available electronics class. As a technician Kaas worked mostly in the entertainment industry, doing equipment repairs and travelling system installs for theatrical dimmer manufacturers AVAB America and Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) and multimedia integrator BBI Engineering. Kaas has run her own servers at home since 1998 and specializes in writing custom code to solve real-life problems.

MATTHEW BECKLER is a computer engineer who lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two cats. His day job usually consists of writing firmware for fancy microcontrollers, and he is a co-founder and engineer at a fun side-hustle called Wayne and Layne, where he and Adam Wolf design and sell electronic kits and help create interactive museum and art exhibits. He holds a BS in computer engineering from the University of Minnesota and an MS and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

KRISTINA DURIVAGE is an independent software developer by day and a hardware hacker by night, specializing in data visualization and making the world a brighter place with LEDs. Her work is collected at http://portfolio.gelicia.com/ and her opinions and cat pictures can be found on Twitter, @gelicia.

LENORE M. EDMAN is a co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, a family-run company that designs, produces, and sells hobby electronics kits, drawing machines, and retrotechnological objects. She writes for the accompanying project blog on the topics of electronics, crafts, cooking, science, robotics, and anything else that catches her fancy. Many of the blogs projects have been featured at science and art museums and in Make, Wired, and Popular Science magazines. She holds a BA in interdisciplinary studies (English and Greek).

MIKE HORD has been working at SparkFun Electronics designing products and projects for makers for several years. His making skills run the gamut from metalworking, woodworking, and 3D printing to coding and circuit design. When not creating his next Big Hack, hes raising two small children to question the veracity of everything except the need for toothbrushing.

JAMES FLOYD KELLY is a full-time technology writer in Atlanta, Georgia. He has written more than 25 books on a mix of topics that includes open source software, LEGO robotics, basic electronics, Arduino programming, and more. He and his wife have two young boys who are showing the early signs of maker-ness.

MICHAEL KRUMPUS has a masters degree in computer science and 25 years of experience as a software engineer. He discovered a passion for electronics design later in life and formed a small electronics company, nootropic design, where he designs and manufactures innovative electronics for hobbyists, designers, educators, and industry. Michael is based in Minneapolis.

WINDELL H. OSKAY is the co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, a Silicon Valley company that has designed and produced specialized electronics and robotics kits since 2007. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories also runs a popular DIY project blog, and many of its projects have been featured at science and art museums and in Make, Wired, and Popular Science magazines. Windell served as a founding board member of OSHWA, the Open Source Hardware Association. Previously, Windell has worked as a hardware design engineer at Stanford Research Systems and as a research physicist in the Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He holds a BA in physics and mathematics from Lake Forest College and a PhD in physics from the University of Texas at Austin.

ADAM WOLF is a co-founder of and engineer at Wayne and Layne, where he designs DIY electronics kits and interactive exhibits. He also does computer engineering and embedded systems work at an engineering design services firm in Minneapolis. When he isnt making things blink or helping computers talk to each other, hes spending time with his wife and sons.

STEVEN BINGLER is a software engineer with a focus on low-level and embedded systems and has always had an interest in small, fun projects. He earned his masters degree from the University of Florida and in his spare time enjoys bicycling, tinkering, and finding new places to eat.