Micro:bit Lightbox

Ever wanted a lightbox that could change colors? You can build one now with simple materials, micro:bit and a light strip!


YOU WILL NEED

  • 1 x Micro:bit
  • 1 x Battery pack
  • 1 x NeoPixel LED strip
  • 1 x Small box
  • 1 x Glue Stick / Sticky Tape
  • 1 x Cutting board
  • 1 x Pen Knife
  • 1 x Ruler
  • Tin Foil
  • Tracing paper

Looking for parts to make this?


STEP 1

Preparing the box

(a) Depending on the type of box, the flap might have to be removed. Ideally, it should look like the picture.




Materials

1 x box



STEP 2

Preparing the sleeve

(a) Cut a strip of tracing paper the width of your box. It needs to be long enough to wrap around the box to make a translucent sleeve.




Materials

1 x tracing paper



STEP 3

Making the sleeve

(a) Make a crisp fold around the corners and fold the tracing paper around to make the sleeve.

(b) Glue/Tape overlapping ends together.



STEP 4

Lightbox?

(a) Line the back of the box with aluminium foil to let the light reflect off.




Materials

  • aluminium foil


STEP 5

Inserting the light strip

(a) Make a hole on one side of the box big enough for the NeoPixel strip, ring or compatible LED strip and thread it through. Let the female leads dangle outside the box.




Materials

1 x Neopixel light strip



STEP 6

Plugging in
(a) Plug in the neopixel strip to pin0 of the breakout board




Materials

  • 1 x Breakout board
  • 1 x Micro:bit


STEP 7

Coding it up

(a) Go to the microbit makecode editor

(b) Add the NeoPixel library to the project.



STEP 8

Coding it

(a) Drag and drop 'set strip to neopixel....' block into the start block. Change the pin to PIN0 (or whichever pin you've plug the light strip to) and change the number of light pixels

(b) Drag a show rainbow into onstart block

(c) Add a pause block inside onstart

(d) In a forever block, drag in a "rotate pixels by 1" to cycle through the rainbow colors


Made this activity? Good Job! Now spread the word. Share a photo of your creation on social media with #letsgethacking #Micro:bitLightbox