10 LED Projects for Geeks: Build Light-Up Costumes, Sci-Fi Gadgets, and Other Clever Inventions
abOut the cOntributOrS 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 blog’s 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 he’s 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 master’s 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 isn’t making things blink or helping computers talk to each other he’s spending time with his wife and sons abOut the t echnical r evieWer 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 master’s degree from the University of Florida and in his spare time enjoys bicycling tinkering and finding new places to eat
intrO ductiOn by m attheW b ecKler Welcome to 10 LED Projects for Geeks featuring 10 projects of varying complexity that you can build using electronics You’ll be using the Raspberry Pi and Arduino to create all kinds of gadgets and inventions in this book In this introduction you’ll learn how to get started with both boards including installing the necessary software and you’ll meet the simple electronic component that is the focus of this book the LED At the end of this introduction you’ll also find a list of popular suppliers for parts you’ll need in the projects All About lEDs Before you start building cool projects using LEDs let’s take a moment to define them An LED is a circuit component that converts electricity into light LEDs come in all colors shapes and sizes and are useful in a variety of projects Most LEDs are used for indication meaning they indicate the status of something to a nearby human such as door is open radio is on or security system is armed Nowadays larger and brighter LEDs are available that can provide illumination of an object or region Figure 1 shows some basic LEDs used for indication LED stands for light-emitting diode There are a few words here to unpack but let’s start with the word diode In a circuit a diode works like a one-way valve permitting electricity to flow in only one predefined direction If you try to send electricity in the other direc tion it won’t flow Diodes convert alternating current AC electricity 2 i n t rO d u c t i O n Figure 1 A variety of single LEDs
