Mike Downey reached out to us about his NeoPixel 3D-printed Magic Wand project:
I wanted a reason to play with the NeoPixel strips you guys sell, so I made a nifty “Magic Wand” and thought I would share the source files.
Every year in our neighborhood we have a lantern parade where there are lots
of creative things people make to participate. This should make a nice
addition to the parade.
Thanks for the tutorials on how to control the LED strips. They make the
code extremely easy!
More details on Thingiverse where he shared his source files — Magic Wand by downeym:
This is a light wand that uses a 60 LED strip and a small embedded microcontroller to control the LEDs. I have included the Arduino source code with the thing files.
You can programmatically make any light sequence you want by altering the source code.
This uses 3 AA batteries to power the LED strip and the microcontroller. The battery compartment is printed inside the handle of the wand. The battery door is held in place by a single M3x20 screw.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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