Materials
3 Paper lanterns
3 Jumper wires
1 Soldering iron
1 Solder wire
1 Arduino Board
1 9V Battery
1 9V battery clip
Rainbow Ribbon Cable Wires
Flora RGB Smart NeoPixels
Polyester fill
Adhesive spray
Hot glue gun
Fishing string
Scissors
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| To make the cloud, you need to hot glue your paper lanterns together. If it doesn’t hold well enough, you may use fishing wire to sow together the lanterns for a stronger base. To create the effect of the cloud, you will need to add adhesive spray to the object and then layer polyester fill onto it. Make sure to leave a lantern uncovered from the hole on top. This space should be where you insert and hide the battery. Once it is all together, you will need scissors (or whatever works best) to punch a small hole in the paper lanterns/cloud. The holes will allow you to insert your NeoPixel strand to each cloud. Lastly, you will (Note: You might want to use gloves when adding the adhesive spray and polyester fill!) |
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| First you will solder three jumper wires (of different color) to the left side of the NeoPixel. You want to make sure the arrows on our NeoPixels are pointing towards the right. After that is done, you will need to solder three cable wires. Repeat this for every Neopixel, and leave the right side of your last NeoPixel without any connection/wires attached. |
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| Next, you will need your Arduino board. Of the three jumper wires at the beginning of your connection, you will connect 5v from the NeoPixel and connect it to 5v on the arduino board. Then connect the jumper wire attached to “GND” on the NeoPixels and plug it to the ground pin on the arduino board. Lastly, the jumper wire connected to “in” on the neopixels should be on pin 6 of the arduino. After completing this step you may connect your arduino set-up to your computer in order to install its coding. |
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| Connect a 9V battery clip onto a 9V batter. This will be your power source for the installation. |
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| Connect your 9V Battery to your arduino board. |
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| (There’s a light on the arduino board. This will tell you if your board is active, and it should light up). |
Code
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>
#include “FastLED.h”
//
// FILE: lightning.pde
// AUTHOR: Rob Tillaart
// DATE: 2012-05-08
//
// PUPROSE: simulate lighning POC
//
//
//#define BETWEEN 2579
#define BETWEEN 3579
#define DURATION 43
#define TIMES 8
#define FLASHES 12
#define COLOR_ORDER GRB
const int NUMPIXELS = 5;
uint8_t brightness = 128; // Set brightness of NeoPixels here
CRGB leds [NUMPIXELS];
CRGBPalette16 currentPalette;
TBlendType currentBlending;
#define LEDPIN 6
//Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(NUMPIXELS, LEDPIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
static uint8_t startIndex = 0;
unsigned long lastTime = 0;
int waitTime = 0;
void setup()
{
FastLED.addLeds<WS2811, LEDPIN, GRB>(leds, NUMPIXELS).setCorrection( TypicalLEDStrip );
FastLED.setBrightness( brightness );
Serial.begin(9600);
//strip.begin();
//strip.setBrightness(brightness);
currentPalette = OceanColors_p; // RainbowColors_p; CloudColors_p; PartyColors_p; LavaColors_p; HeatColors_p;
currentBlending = LINEARBLEND;
// pinMode(LEDPIN, OUTPUT);
//strip.begin();
// strip.show();
//strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to ‘off’
}
void FillLEDsFromPaletteColors (uint8_t colorIndex) {
startIndex = startIndex + 1;
uint8_t brightness = 255;
for (int i = 0; i < NUMPIXELS; i ++) {
leds [i] = ColorFromPalette (currentPalette, colorIndex, brightness, currentBlending);
//colorIndex + = beatB;
// colorIndex = beatB;
}
}
void loop()
{
FillLEDsFromPaletteColors( startIndex);
FastLED.show();
lightning ();
//delay(500);
lightning ();
// do other stuff here
}
void lightning () {
//for (int X = 0; X < 5; X++) {
if (millis() – waitTime > lastTime) // time for a new flash
{
// adjust timing params
lastTime += waitTime;
waitTime = random(BETWEEN);
// waitTime = 2579;
//Serial.println(BETWEEN);
for (int i = 0; i < random(TIMES); i++)
{
// Serial.println(millis());
brightness = 255;
//digitalWrite(LEDPIN, HIGH);
delay(20 + random(DURATION));
brightness = 10;
//digitalWrite(LEDPIN, LOW);
delay(10);
}
}
//}
// lastTime = 0;
}