Light Saber With Sound Effects Using Arduino

Here is my Light Saber design using Arduino!

• 7 LED's (your choice of color)
• 7 10k resistors
• Cardboard strip 4 ft X 1.5 inch
• Clear light protector 4ft long
• Arduino
• Breadboard
• Jumper wires
• Scrap wire
• Copper tape (or tin foil with glue)
• Sodering iron
• Wire strippers
• Sewing needle

In this step, you will need your LED's and cardboard strip. Start by poking small holes with a sewing needle about 6.8 inches away from each other. Then thread the long end of each LED through the holes. You now need to tape the heap of the LED to the strip, covering up as little of the bulb as possible. You can also use hot glue to get a more clear adhesive.

Using your wire strippers measure out a strip of wire from each LED spanning 6 inches more than the distance from the end of the cardboard (this can be either end just make sure to keep it consistent in the next step). Then solder one end to the long side of the LED. Lable each wire so that you know which connects to LED 1 (the closest LED), which goes to LED 2 (the second closest LED), etc. If you are so inclined you can also tape the loose strands of wire to the cardboard to make it more compact but this is optional.

When connecting the grounds the first step is to lay down your Copper Tape or Aluminum Foil so that each strip spans the distance between one shorter end of an LED to another. You can now solder the shorter ends of the LED's the closest pit of copper tape. Finally, you will need to solder a piece of wire connecting each section of copper. This includes the one at the previously decided base. This one will stretch 6 inches from the end. Mark this as your ground wire.

Assemble your breadboard and Arduino as shown above. The red lines from the resistors are to LED's 1-7 as shown. Sorry for the bad handwriting but basically what it means is that left to right the wires coming off of the resistors go to LED 1,2,3,4,5,6, and 7 in consecutive order. The ground wire will connect to the LED ground strip.

Using the plastic light protector (or any other clear or semi-clear tubing), push the cardboard strip into the tube. See the above picture for what it should look like.

Now following the guide you will at the buttons and piezo for sound.

Attach your Arduino to your computer and upload the following code:

You have now assembled your lightsaber. I would recommend gluing the breadboard to your blade to make it look more natural. The button connected to pin 2 extends the saber and the one attached to 1 retracts it. The piezo will play the sound effects including the extend, retract, and hum sounds.