Glowing Pandora Mushroom | a Lamp Project Inspired From AVATAR

Do you still remember those glowing plants from AVATAR movie (2009)? I really love that movie, and still amazed by how beautiful the creatures in Pandora in the film. I even made a lightbox based on the Toruk Makto scene from the film.

Now I want to try another lighting project based on the film, especially the glowing plants. For a starting point, I was thinking about making a small plant lamp, so I decided to use mushroom as my inspiration. In this project I will show you how I made a mushroom lamp.

In this project I used:

• Silicone glue
• Printing ink (or you can use a water color paste)
• Clear plastic
• Tissue
• Tree bark
• Charcoal or tree bark flakes
• Super glue
• Crumpled paper ball
• Thread
• Drill
• Resistor
• LED-2835 (16mA, 3.4v)
• Soldering iron
• Wire
• Lithium ion Battery 4.2 v
• Cable (red and green)

First thing first, I made a plan on how big resistance I will use and how the arrangement of the electric components like battery, resistor, LED, and the switch. Thus I used Tinkercad to help me made the plan. See my ible here to know more about the planning process. Based on that plan, it was verified that the system will run succesfully on the actual project.

Then I started to make the project by arranging the components. First, I cut the LED, then soldering the resistor to the anode from the LED. After that I soldered red cable to the resistor to mark the positive part of the LED. Then I soldered green cable to the negative part of the LED. After that I twisted all the cable to make it slim for the stalk of the mushroom. Don't forget to check if the LED can light up.

I took a spoon of the silicone glue and mix it well with the printing ink. If you have a watercolor paste, then it would works as well. Put the mixture on a clear plastic, then put the LED stalk on the mixture. Roll the plastic and shape it to mimic a mushroom stalk. Wait until dry about three hours or for a night. After that peel off the plastic.

To make the cap of the mushroom, I made a crumpled paper ball first. But if you have a ball, mold, anithing in a dome shape, then it could works as well. Place another silicone mixture on a plastic, then mold it using the paper ball. Don't make the dome too thick. After that I rope the molding using a thread to make it stay in place until dry. Wait until dry about three hours or for a night. After that, peel off the plastic from the mushroom cap and trim the uneven edge.

Prepare a supporting wire and make a circular shape, I used a battery to help me shape the wire, and make sure to measure the size of the cap first. Solder the supporting wire to the LED.

Add a piece of tissue bellow the supporting wire to hide the wire and the LED, it will also make the mushroom looks more realistic. I added some super glue to attach the tissue to the stalk. Then place the cap on top of the supporting wire and add some silicone glue to stick them.

Prepare the tree bark, then start to arrange the mushroom. I used the super glue to stick the mushroom to the tree bark. Then I also added some Charcoal flakes (you can use tree bark flakes) to cover the attachment point. Use a drill to make a hole for attachment place of the mushroom.

This is the circuit diagram of the lamp. So in this case I used a parallel method to operate the lamp. So can learn more about this circuit here

After all the steps are finished, now you can enjoy the Mushroom Lamp! It will look nice a sleeping lamp.