EDM2 Final Project

For my final project, I made a resin lamp. To make this I first had to assemble my wood base which I made by gluing different strips of wood together to form a block and then I cut this at the 2/3 mark. I programmed a strip of 4 neopixels that will be included through a slit in my wood base. I will be using a Seeed Xiao Raspberry Pie Arduino to power and code these LEDs. I made a cardboard holder and hot glued this to my two wood pieces. I poured colored resin into this space in between the pieces and then planed the excess off. I oiled my lamp and then I was able to take it home and give it to my little brother, Harrison. This project will use all of the skills I have learned this year: laser cutting to make the resin holder, my knowledge of the woodworking tools, using resin, coding, electronic work, and many other important skills. 

My Timelines

I did not have a laid out plan going into this project because I was unsure when I was going to be ready to use the FabLab tools. I did as much as I could each day to make sure I would finish my project on time. While we were working on this project, we were also assembling our Board To Be Wild project, which can be found here or on my EDM2 page. On days that say "BBW", it means I worked on my cutting board. The specific events noted will be explained in detail later on. Below are pictures of my final project timelines:

Assembling my Wood Base

For my base, I was first given a big wooden slab. I cut this in half and tried to make it exact. I ended up only using one half and I cut this piece into 12 strips. I stacked these pieces into the block I wanted and then glued 3 layers of 4 pieces each. I clamped those layers and then, when they were dry, I sanded them with the drum sander. I glued these 3 layers together and clamped this block. I then used the jointer to sand the sides of the whole block. I then cut my block at the 2/3 mark. This would make my top and bottom of the lamp. My lamp will almost be like a sandwich with resin in the middle of the two wood pieces. I then added a large dent at the bottom of my wood base for my Seeed with the router. I also used the router to add a groove at the top of the bottom wood piece for my neopixels. I then used the drill to add a hole running through my bottom wood piece so that I could feed my wires from the neopixels through.

LED Assembly

The key component of this lamp is lighting! I was given a strip of 4 neopixels and three wires colored yellow, black, and red with yellow connecting to pin, black connecting to ground, and red connecting to power. I soldered the wires onto their respective spots. I was then given a Seeed XIAO Arduino and I needed to make a code. I went to the site "ChatGPT" and asked it for a code for 4 neopixels in a Raspberry Pie Arduino off of pin zero and I asked it to make the neopixels light up different shades of blue. I sent this code to the Arduino application and uploaded this code to my Seeed after changing the board and the port. Once my code was uploaded, I assembled a breadboard circuit to make sure that my code was correct and would work for my neopixels. Once my neopixels lit up, I knew my code was correct so I moved on with pouring my resin and assembling my lamp. Here is the code I used:

#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

#define LED_PIN 0

#define NUM_LEDS 4

Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(NUM_LEDS, LED_PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

void setup() {

  strip.begin();

}

void loop() {

  // Set all pixels to different shades of blue

  for (int i = 0; i < NUM_LEDS; i++) {

    strip.setPixelColor(i, strip.Color(0, 0, i*30));

  }

  // Fade between colors

  for (int j = 0; j < 256; j++) {

    for (int i = 0; i < NUM_LEDS; i++) {

      strip.setPixelColor(i, strip.Color(0, 0, i*30 + j));

    }

    strip.show();

    delay(10);

  }

}

Resin and Final Touches

Once my LEDs and my Seeed were good to go, I started my assembly process. I took off the sticky side of my neopixels and stuck them into the groove I had made with the router. The strip was too long so I ended up cutting off one neopixel so that none of my neopixels would hang off the edge. I fed the wires through the hole I had made. I needed to fit the ends of my wires into the tiny holes on my Seeed, but the wires were too thick. I gathered three small pieces of solid-core wire, in the same colors as my long wires connecting to my neopixel strip, and twisted the ends of the two same colored wires together. I soldered these three and then put electrical tape around them to make sure no fires were started. I then soldered the solid wire ends into my Seeed, each in their respective places, ground, power, and my pin, "D zero." I put hot glue on both ends of the hold in my wood to protect the wires from resin and I tested my neopixels to make sure it was okay to continue with assembly. At first, my neopixels did not work. After some slight adjustments to my code, they ended up lighting perfectly. I painted the parts of my blocks that would touch the resin with a coat of resin to waterproof them. I then laser cut a square with two etched lines with specific measurements and widths to fit around my wood pieces. I put tape on one side of this cardboard. This piece of cardboard will prevent my resin from spilling everywhere. I hot glued this piece of cardboard to my two wood pieces, which I placed a little apart to make a space for my resin. I mixed equal parts of both part A and part B resin and I added a dark blue colored powder. I poured the resin into my set-up and it did not leak. I let this dry overnight and I planed off the excess resin two days later. I used the orbital sander to make my block extra smooth. I used wood oil to oil my lamp, I placed tape over my Seeed for this step to protect it from the oil, and let it dry overnight. I was able to take home my completed lamp the next day. 

Problems I Faced

One problem I faced was right after I fed my wires through my block. I realized that the hole that was added was not close enough to the edge so one of my neopixels did not fit. I simply cut it off and didn't worry because if my code would power 4 neopixels, my 3 would still light up. After soldering these wires to my Seeed, I went to test my lamp to make sure my electronics would work before continuing and pouring resin. When I plugged it in, however, my lamp did not light up. I went into Arduino and changed my neopixel count, thinking that that was the problem, and it still did not light even after uploading this new code. I then realized that because I was using a Seeed XIAO Arduino, instead of calling the pin "zero" in the code, I had to call it "D zero." Even though it was one letter difference, my lamp worked perfectly after uploading this new code.