It's Alive!

Rebecca Rashkin
Aug 17, 2024
2 min read

The outer ring cycles through the whole spectrum over 24 hours, the second to the outer ring cycles over one hour, the inner ring cycles over 1 minute and the central flower-looking light can be controlled by the participant. This photo was taken at 9:09 AM. Don't mind the dead button LED. This will be fixed 😅

No regrets

For a long time, I regretting getting my bachelor's in electrical rather than computer engineering. Often enough I have questions about software engineering concepts that might have been answered had I chosen a different major. However, while working on ColorClock, I've recognized that my degree gave me familiarity with electronic components and datasheets that I might not have gotten with a different undergraduate focus. Like when I realized that I shouldn't be powering the Ardunio with 12V directly, I immediately knew I needed an LM7805 linear voltage regulator. I swear I read somewhere at some point that 12V was okay! In any case, for the first time since I graduated, I sincerely have no regrets about my major.

A lot has happened since the last post, including completely resoldering a new circuit board followed by a very sad afternoon where I was ready to give up after burning another Arduino board. But it all came together in the end.

Here is the final wiring of the circuit board. Isn't it beautiful? 🥰

We did it!

A couple months ago we decided to schedule a live demo as motivation to get the project finished a few weeks before leaving. The looming date of the demo gave us the motivation to finish with exactly one weekend to spare to get ready 😵‍💫

Last weekend was the demo and it was a success! After scrambling to get it all wired up (which involved an embarrassing number of alligator clips), I threw together a slide deck that I presented to kick off the event. I added some of the slides at the end of this post for your enjoyment.

I discussed some of concepts of RGB LEDs, how a level shifter works, and went over the wiring of the circuit board. I was excited to play teacher again 👩‍🏫 Don't mind our camping boxes and living room workbench -- Photo courtesy of Stasi Silvares.

Bo and friend discussing the meaning behind the colors -- Photo courtesy of Stasi Silvares.

We'll be using solar to charge the batter that powers ColorClock ⚡️

The participant will be able to sit on the bench while viewing the light display and manipulating the controls 🎮

The final touches

This is our last weekend before we deliver and I'm thrilled that we are really just putting on the final touches. Although I learned today that last minute software changes can be quite risky.

I decided to change the initial colors for the the participant controlled central light, but because of my wonky logic for how the buttons interact with the colors, I got less than ideal results.