Jedi Holocron
Hackathon 2 (2023)
For my second Hackathon, I wanted to make something a little more fun that was significant to me, so I decided to make something from Star Wars. Since a lot of people had already made lightsabers before, I wanted to do something different, so I decided to make a Jedi Holocron that glows and pulses with light.
This project was meaningful to me because I love Star Wars. It was great for me to make something that meant a lot to me, especially since I watched Star Wars all the time growing up. This was a chance for me to bring something from Star Wars to life, and I enjoyed making something with NeoPixels this Hackathon. I also enjoyed something a little more simple construction-wise, and a lot of my learning experience for this project came from coding and adjusting based on what I figured out I could and couldn't do.
First, I designed the outside of the box, which would serve as my main frame. I made a laser cut box in MakerCase, then designed the panel designs in Adobe Illustrator. After that, I sized the box to be approximately 5 inches on all sides, which I figured would give me enough room inside to put the Arduino uno, 5V power supply, and NeoPixels.
Next I began laser cutting the outside panels with plywood. I made it so the design would also cut out, and let light come out from where I would put acrylic panels later on.
After the main pieces were cut, I spray painted the wood with a metallic brass paint, to make it look like the Holocrons in Star Wars. Since some of the Holocron designs are different, I had to decide whether to make it silvery, dark gold, or brass-like, but I thought brass would look the most bright and lively. Once the pieces had dried I hot glued three of them together in a corner to begin making the box form.
Next I did the acrylic panels. Since these did not have to have any designs on them, I made them as squares that were smaller than the main panels and laser cut them out. After that, I used an aqua, sea-glass spray paint to paint them frosted blue. This was so when the NeoPixels were inside, they would still have a frosted blue look on the outside to look like a Holocron, and also so when the Holocron is off, you can't see anything in the inside.
After the acrylic panels dried, I began putting them together with the plywood sides, hot gluing them all together with the brass and sea-glass sides facing outward. Once the sides were attached together, I began connecting all the sides except the top to make the main body of the Holocron.
Since I made the box to fit together, I didn't need to attach the top in anyway because it would just snap and stay in place.
Once the body was done, I moved on to the coding. I had been Hello World-ing some different code for a while, and originally wanted to use a photoresistor to use to turn on and off the Holocron. However, I was unable to get the coding right to use for the light sensitivity and the fading on and off, so I decided to pivot and code it to pulse randomly with different colors of blue lights. There is no on or off function, but it just needs to be plugged in to be on (there is a 5V charger inside the Holocron that way it doesn't have a cord coming out of it). Once on, different colors of blue with pulse at different intervals and different brightnesses randomly, making the Holocron look "alive with the Force."
