Lighten Up

The Lighten Up lamp is an interactive mood tracker with a custom 3D printed dial, Neopixel
LED strips, and a laser cut acrylic and wood enclosure. The user turns the dial on the lamp based on how they are feeling to light up a specific color. There are 7 different emotions to choose from that range from extreme happiness to extreme sadness. The different emotions are not only denoted by the different colors of the lamp but also by smiley face icons. While these icons are quite simple in graphics, they perfectly encapsulate the wide range of emotions that the user has to pick from. Additionally, these simple icons make the lamp very straightforward and easy to use. The lamp does not come with an instruction manual because it is inherently intuitive: just plug in the lamp and turn the dial to the face you resonate with most at that moment. The Lighten Up lamp is an accessible product that has tactile feedback on the dial, as well as the two representations of emotion: color-based, and icon-based. Therefore, a user who is color blind is still able to enjoy this device as well as someone with low vision. The lamp stores the user’s last 7 moods in a separate “mood tracker” on the left side of the device. The mood tracker was created by carefully programming a Neopixel LED Strip to save the color of the lamp after it has been selected by the dial for roughly 15 seconds. The colors that the lamp displays are far from random. They were meticulously curated based on extensive research and survey in order to best encapsulate a feeling into a color, which is not a simple task. On the Lighten Up lamp, warm colors correlate with “happy” emotions whereas cool colors represent the “sad” emotions. A soft yellow, bright orange, and magenta represent extreme happiness, happiness, and mild happiness in that order. A beautiful Kelly green represents a neutral feeling. Mild sadness, sadness, and extreme sadness are denoted by seafoam green, royal purple, and deep blue respectively. We offer a wide range of moods to pick from on the Lighten Up lamp because we understand that emotion is a spectrum and is far from black and white. Additionally, with these many options to choose from, the user must really consider how they are feeling in order to accurately track their mood. This level of introspection requires the user to take time for deliberate mindfulness, which is the reason we created the Lighten Up lamp. In today’s highly social day and age, it is increasingly important to take time for oneself and reflect internally. When you allow yourself to be in a bad mood and reflect on why you feel this way, you can improve how you feel because you are giving yourself a safe place to feel sad. Without negative emotions, there wouldn’t be positive ones. The Lighten Up lamp does not shame its user for being in a “bad mood”. We celebrate all expressions of emotion, which allows us to feel more alive and grounded.

Enclosure

1. Ply wood
2. 3/4''x 3/4"x 8' piece of wood
3. Wood stain
4. Foggy acrylic
5. Sandpaper
6. Acrylic paint
7. Hot glue
8. Wood glue
9. Popsicle sticks
10. Foam hemisphere
11. PLA filament
12. Rubber feet
13. Access to a laser cutter and 3D printer
14. Foam
15. Printer paper

Circuit

1. Sparkfun protoboard
2. Neopixels
3. 470 ohm resistors
4. Arduino nano 33 iot
5. Header pins
6. 22 gage wire
7. Solder
8. Rotating Potentiometer
9. Heat shrink
10. Micro USB

The first thing we did after brainstorming ideas was to build a cardboard prototype. This is really useful because it allows us to have a physical item that we can use to better visualize how all the components will fit together. We used foam for the dial on the front, and paper to show the mood tracker on the side. From the start, we felt it was especially important that the final product be aesthetically pleasing and we used the prototype to figure out how to best achieve this. Not only was it important to gauge the size of the lamp, but we also decided on building a frame for the lamp, rather than trying to glue the acrylic to itself.
In order to achieve the clean look we wanted, we thought it was best to laser cut as many of the parts as we could. This meant we were laser cutting all 5 sections of the frosted acrylic, as well as the four sheets of wood that would make up the base. We also used the laser cutter to make a hole for the dial on the front and engraved the words “HOW ARE YOU FEELING” above. Additionally, we used the same process to make a hole for the mood tracker and cut a piece of acrylic to fit respectively. The final pieces to cut were the frame which consisted of four taller sections for the side, and four shorter sections for the top. In order for the acrylic to fit nicely into the enclosure, we engraved channels into all of these frame pieces. Next, all of the wood pieces were sanded and stained for a nice appearance. Furthermore, we sanded both sides of all of the acrylic pieces to make them more opaque. The final step before assembly was to paint over the engraved with white paint to make them stand out more.

When assembling the box, we did the top separate from the base, so that we could easily add in the electronic components later. First, with the top, we first used a couple of dots of hot glue to secure the acrylic in the channels, and wood glue on the junctions where the wood met. For the base, we started in a similar way, but this time also gluing on the wood sheets. It is important to be conscious of the order in which you assemble the box so that you aren’t forced to squeeze any pieces in between the frame, as it would make it hard to glue. To avoid this we assembled three sides of the box first, leaving the two open sides without the frame. Then glue together the remaining side with both of the frame pieces attached. Once you have this, you can glue both of the final frame pieces at the same time.

Here is a link to the CAD files for the enclosure

In order to create this circuit, I first drew up a schematic on Fritzing. I then picked out my
supplied and prototyped the circuit on a breadboard. One of the Neopixel strips is 7 LEDs long and is used for the mood tracker. The other is 35 LEDs long and is used to light up the main portion of the lamp. The 470 Ohm resistor is used to smooth out the brightness of the LEDs. Once I made sure this circuit worked exactly how I wanted, I soldered it on to a spark fun breakable protoboard. I used solid core wire on the protoboard to connect elements across the board. I soldered header pins into the board to insert the Arduino Nano 33 IoT into so I would be able to remove it later if I needed to. I connected long wires onto the 10k potentiometer as well as the Neopixel strips so they could reach where they needed to go in the enclosure.

The knob mechanism consists of 2 parts, the base, and the dial. On the base, there is a hole through the center with 7 faces and concave hemispheres arranged symmetrically around it. Expressions shown represent very happy, happy, slightly happy, neutral, slightly sad, sad, and very sad. Faces with different colors and expressions are a universal signal for emotional feedback, commonly seen in public restrooms to survey the cleanliness of the facility. The faces are cut into the base while the facial features remain level to create a physical representation of each emotion. The hemispheres work with a convex hemisphere on the dial to create tactile feedback when the user changes their emotion. The dial on the hemisphere is located on the bottom of the triangle indicator. To attach the knob there is a hole that reaches halfway through the dial with a tight fit tolerance in regard to the potentiometer we used. We printed this twice to adjust the tolerances and ensure that the faces were different. The final print is 14 g and took 2 hours. After printing, I sanded the pieces down so the acrylic paint would stick better. I found that it did make a difference although you need many layers of paint to cover the color of the plastic. Once the paint is dry I sprayed them with a finishing gloss to seal the paint.

Here is a link to the CAD files for the knob

https://gist.github.com/nabu1980/e4317b32faa022ba4...

Here is a link to the code used for the lamp. This breaks up the potentiometer into 7 regions, each resembling a different mood, and therefore a different color. First, the code checks to see if the dial has just been moved into a new region or if it has been sitting on a certain mood/color. Then it waits to make sure the user has chosen a mood and is not turning the dial through regions. After the dial is in a new region for a set amount of time, the code records the input and adds the corresponding color to the mood tracking light strip on the side of the lamp.

The code checks to make sure the user has just moved the dial into a new region. Once the user is set on a mood/color, the code will wait for a little bit to make sure the user isn't going to change their mind then add that color to the mood tracker LED strip. It is set up this way so that the mood tracker isn't filled up when the lamp stays on one mood for an extended period of time, but rather adds a new color input for every new mood the user inputs. In addition, there is a smoothing code implemented on the potentiometer so that there are easy transitions between regions.

We constructed the wooden frame with acrylic panels in a previous step while leaving the top off to add the rest of the elements. When placing the protoboard directly on the wood, the LEDs would show an error. To solve this we placed a piece of foam in between the board and the wood placing hot glue in the corners of the protoboard. The mood tracker on the left side of the device has a strip of printer paper on the inside of the acrylic window to further diffuse the light. A piece of one-sided sticky foam is then attached over the neoPixels to hold them in place.

To assemble the knob feature I put a light layer of hot glue around the base and slid it into the correct orientation. Using a popsicle stick I sealed the back of the base to the front wooden panel, because of the tolerances used with the print the potentiometer was able to screw into the plastic base. To finish the dial we put a dot of hot glue on the tip of the dial and placed it on the knob, making sure to line up the indicator with one end of the range.

The final element to add is the LEDs to the center. After planning how we wanted them arranged within the enclosure we attached them with hot glue to the foam hemisphere. Here we ran into a problem where the glue was melting the ball, to avoid this move quickly and spread the glue out more evenly.