My grandson is getting this for Christmas. A little imagination and it could be almost anything. space ship controls, rocket launch controls, remote control for ill tempered sea bass (with laser on forehead) … It is a work in process but I have enough of it in place to invite you along for the rest of the build.
The GF has been vital to making this. I had a lot of these parts in stock (mostly leftover components from past projects) including:
Non illuminated switches:
3 fighter plane covered on/off switches
2 black rubber on/off switches
1 silver on/off switch
18 colored button switches
2 rotary encoders with push button
Illuminated switches (led inside switch):
5 arcade style buttons
2 metallic ring lit buttons
1 adafruit trellis illuminated keypad (4 x 4)
Programmable LEDS
neopixel ring (under one of the encoders)
8 x 8 neopixel matrix
two 8 x 32 neopixel matrix (in wormhole)
3 LED volt meters
2 servos with control board
2 mirrors (one of them a 2-way mirror) for the wormhole
Guts:
Teensy 3.6 (arduino style brain)
Audio board for teensy
level switchers for getting teensy to talk to leds
rechargeable power supply with 5 volt output
small usb powered speakers
The hardware assembly is mostly done (installation of powersupply, speakers, and led matrix remains). Now i move to the wiring and coding phase. The plan is to include sound effects and flashing LEDs in response to botton pushes. More advanced button pushing sequences could yield hidden effects. The electronics will also include a microphone to record sounds and play them back with effects (filters, delays and what not). Some images.
The entire thing (with spinning discs covered)
early on, from below
buttons, encoder and volt meters. there is a ring of LEDs under that white circle
8 x 8 matrix with 16 buttons, similar matrix to the ones I use in my small clocks. There is a recess which will accept different letter grids. I hope to use hall effect sensors and magnets in the grids to let the box know which letters are on top (and thus control what is written there).
two spinning discs (servo motors underneath) and a rotary encoder, covers not in place
the wormhole (will have leds along the sides for a more sci-fi effect (thus far it works well in low lighting conditions but I am hopeful) Video of wormhole
