Hello, welcome to my blog of things.

I figured as a first blog/test blog I’ll post something I’ve done in the past.

Almost a year ago I was speaking to my then boyfriend (now husband) about LEDs and making them blink. I looked up at a painting I had done a few years previous of an astronaut floating in space with a quote from one of The Hoosiers songs.

I asked if I could make the stars actually twinkle and he said, “sure!” And so it began…

I think this was the point in which he had me learn how to solder via a SparkFun Simon game. Then he showed me the Arduino software and walked me through how to write a script to make the stars randomly blink at different light levels.

Then I got the AdaFruit Neopixel LEDs and tested them along the way. Finally glueing them to the back of the canvas, allowing the light to shine through by poking a hole for each star with a thumbtack.

Right now I have the whole thing hooked up to a 12 volt battery, but those are a little expensive and only last about 6 hours total. What I want to do is hook it up to an actual plug and have it on a light sensor to just turn on at night. Or something like that instead of a switch and battery.

Front and Back

For more images: Imgur Gallery

The code for Twinkle: Github Gist