Curled Up in the Sky

This was my first project in my Object class at the Atlas Institute at CU Boulder. In this project we used a threadboard, an adafruit circuit playground, a micro usb to usb cord, some leds, some tiny magnets, a piece of fabric, and conductive thread to create our own constellations. I titled my project Curled Up in the Sky because of the way my thread "wraps" around the board.

(1) Threadboard

(1) Adafruit Circuit Playground

(1) Micro usb to usb cord

(6) LEDs

(3) Tiny magnets

(1) Piece of fabric

(12) Pieces of conductive thread

This schematic displays the connections between my power source and my LEDs. Each LED was connected in parallel meaning that they are all included in the circuit but each have their own path before the circuit is completed; this is displayed in the diagram by the arrows displaying the separate paths of each LED.

My layout for the LEDs was partly randomized; I wasn't looking to make a certain shape but rather wanted to depict a night sky, where there are stars all across the sky. As much as I enjoyed this layout, I ended up changing it after laying down my conductive thread so that I could more easily get all the LEDs to light up.

I began by laying out my thread on top of the Adafruit Circuit Playground and placing it on a tiny magnet. The fabric is laid down and set in place by a tiny magnet; in this project the fabric is being used as an insulator. The thread from the circuit playground is placed on top of the fabric and then continues to moves in a somewhat circular shape on the outer edges of the board. Once the thread is placed around the board without the end of the thread touching the beginning, I rearranged my LEDs as I started to set up their connections with the conductive thread. Some LEDs had two pieces of conductive thread, while others only had one because they were already touching the main thread with one of their legs. I used the conductive thread the run electricity through the LEDs and then used more pieces of thread to connect the LEDs to a magnet on the circuit playground. By doing this I was able to complete the circuits and run electricity through each LED. In this project my ground is the threads that come from the one of the magnets on the circuit and wrap around the board, and my power busses are the threads that connect the LEDs back to the magnet on the circuit.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project and felt that it was a really good introduction into circuits; I had no experience with circuits before this project, and I feel like I understand circuits much more just by completing this constellation. I am thrilled that I was able to get all the LEDs to light up, even though I had to change the location of the LEDs from my original design to accommodate for the space the conductive thread needed.