This project was created by Ed Moriarty of the MIT Edgerton Center, originally for an introductory project for students in an Athabascan Eskimo village in Alaska, for which polar bears and the Aurora Borealis are part of the local culture.
While technical skills can be taught in isolation, it is generally more effective to teach them in the context of a meaningful project.
A good exploratory project should be of limited duration, yet include exposure to a number of different technologies, such as:
Basic LED Circuits and Ohm's Law
Soldering
Electronic Assembly and Handtools
Basic Vector Design and layout( Gravit/Illustrator/Inkscape)
Lasercutting
​Lastly, while a good starter project teaches a common set of skills, there should always be an aesthetic element under control of the student so that each finished project is distinctive and unique. In this project, the student can create a unique plexiglas display, as well as experiment with additive color.
Laser Cutting Design
SVG File
Aurora Bear Lasercuttiing File(Adobe Illustrator)
Students can customize upper plexiglas portion of design, and graphic on front of battery box, using Gravit or other vector drawing program.