Quantum-Forrest

We like playing around with LED strips - and one idea was designing some easy transportable columns for events. Of course they also need to look nice, therefore we covered them with halve-transparent mirror foil - with gives a nice icy look through its crumbling due to transport - at least at night. A lasercut layered wooden base plate completes the look, and the 3D-printed top and bottom parts are also covered with wood verneer. And if you like it and come closer you can even play games on it. Virtual reality 3D games are boring, 1D games are the future :) But we struggled indeed to find games which you can play on a LED strip. Luckily more creative guys like Robin Baumgartner with Line Wobbler and Gerardo Barbarov Rostan with the Open LED Race are more creative. Since our Lab also get funding from the Federal Ministry of Research and Education in Germany for bringing a bit of Quantum Technology Knowledge to the general public, we also wanted to inculde at least some tiny bits of use-cases of Quantum sensors into the games. Since we can't buy them at the moment (at least not for cheap, such that the open-Source and inspire to rebuild idea will still work), we wantes to use similar old school sensors. But it would work far better with the Quantum sensors. Code fpr this is still included, but at the end we went back to using just remotes with buttons - it was hard enough for the visitors to understand the games.

We use a small microcontroller (ESP32), which is actually a bit overpowered, for control. Depending on scale the length of the LED strip might vary, you need 3 strips for the corners, our columns have 225cm height. You need corresponding aluminium square tubes (we found some nice 11.5mm tubes at the german Bauhaus store which have a perfect inner size to press-fit M5 nuts). You need then corresponding M5 long nuts and screws, a bit of wires, alve transparent foil (for mirror darkening). In our case we include a 24V to 5V step down converter in the base, a Speakon-Connector for power supply and 2 USB-A ports to plug in the remote (you might change that).

Design files and program code can be found at https://github.com/JanThar/Column

We start with the square tubes. To make it more transportable (running around in trains with 225m tubes is no fun) we first saw the tubes in more handy 75cm pieces. Insert in each of the 9 tubes on one end a nut, on the other end a screw with an additional nut screwed on top of it (such that the screw sits firm, and one cm will look out of the tube). At the side we glue a piece of the led strip, with connectors at each side. Another (better option) would be just glue self-adhesive velcro on the side. In this case we will later attach a 225cm LED-strip with velcro at the back while setting up the column. Less soldering, better to transport, and even more stable.

Next (or better: in between) we 3D print stabilizers for in between the tubes (2 per column), a top and bottom piece. The latter will later inckude the electronics, and we covered both of them with wood verneer, just that it looks better. Electronics inside the bottom are rather simple: The DC-DC converter is press fitted on one end (or secured with hot glue), and then connected with a commercial Speak-On-Connector in one hole at the side (for 24V input) and 3D-printed USB connector (consisting of front and back part, with two regular through hole PCB USB-A female connectors in between) in Neutrix style in the other (5V soldered to USB as VCC and GND - and one of the other pin used for data transmisssion from the remote to Data-In of the LED-Strips). Then we only need to add three Connectors for the LED strips, connected in parallel to 5V and the aforementioned Data-In, and we are ready to continue. On the bottom of the power supply piece we need to also glue in M5 long nuts in each of the edges.

For the Base plate we just use a projection of the bottom power piece as form for holes and outline and then use Inkscape to design a plate around it. In our case we wanted a base plate of around 46cm as smallest size due to the used transport box. The easiest solution would be a just a basic form as in the third image, with fake grass on top of it such that it looks a bit better.

The better option was using some nice lasercut staked mandelas or chakras. To complicated to design for me, so we checked etsy and bought the design (Therefore no design files here). Then we just needed to scale them, selected a nice looking combination of three layer and changed the middle part with the holes and outline of the stabilizer. (Similarly we used the outline of the stabilizer to laser cut a lid for the power piece).

Another option would be using 3D-printed connectors to attach the column at a wall.

For the remote we used a PCB where we could solder a ESP32 breakout board at one side and buttons on the other (depending on the game we can use different sets of buttons). The PCB order could be found here https://aisler.net/p/FJRDIRFK - but its not the optimal setup, i forget that on the ESP32 not all pins have internal pullups, so you would not only need to solder the buttons, but also resistors to GND. Other options would be using sensors modules on the PCB instead of the buttons.

A USB cable will be soldered at the back side of the PCB, with Power as well as one of the Data lines as Data out for the LED strips.

A laser cut housing will be then hide the electronics.

A 45cm wide, 225cm piece of halve transparent mirror foil will glued with transparent tape into a tube (check of the diameter is correct by starting with a small piece). You can also use other materials like paper, fabrics.

Assembly is relative straight-forward: We start to screw in 3 tubes on top of the Power supply piece and conenct their wires (LED strips should face inwards). Then add a stabilizer piece on top, and srew in the next three tubes and connect them again. Repeat for a second time, then pull the halve-transparent mirror foil over it and finally screw the top lid on the tubes with 3 M5 screws. Finally attach the base plate on the other end of the power suppy piece with three M6 screws.

Finally we just need to upload the programm on the ESP and plug it into one of the USB-ports.

We used seven different games, which you can choose by changing int column = 5; at the beginning of the file. The games and their number are described above in the file. Other options would be using sensors instead of the buttons, but in this case you need the change the code a bit more. The different games are:

• WhackAMole: You have 4 buttons representing 4 segments of the strips. You need to hit the corresponding button if a segment lights up. The hint for a quantum sensor use case in this case would be that Quantum sensors might improve Cancer recognition, and an optional old school sensor would be an infrared temperature distance senor (or later on a quantum temperature sensor).
• Racer: Just a button which you need to press fast to reach the top of the column. The coressponding quantum sensor woul be for more precise time measurement, while our hint on the remote will be hat quantum acceleration sensors can improve indoor navigation (So you could use a classic acceleration sensor for detecting shaking instead of button presses).
• Pong: Hit the button at the right time when the light reaches the bottom to bounce it back. In this case: Quantum measurement of time will improve GPS. If we go for the sensor side: A Gyroscope can detect movements, the corresponding real quantum sensor would be one which could detect magnetic fields
• Adventure (Twang): A very basic adventure game a la Indiana Jones. Lights will be turned on and of as pendula of death. You can only walk trough if the light is off and the path is clear. Quantum orientation sensors will improve autonoumus driving. A sensor option would be using a gyro sensor again, with in this case using a quantum gyroskop later on.
• Pacman: Collect yellow pieces while not be catched by monsters. You can go back and forward an invert your position. A sensor option would be a gesture sensor, and the hint is that gravitational quantum sensors can better detect e.g. mineral ressources.
• Worms (Highstriker): A segment will light up, and you need to hit it through variations of how long you press the button, the longer you press it, the higher you will shoot. In this case we give the info that magnetic quantum sensors will improve NMR. A we could use for it would be a weight scale (or a gravitational quantum sensor).
• Memory: A pattern will light up, and you need to repeat it through button presses. A nice - but not really working sensor would eb using the MindFlex brain sensor, with nerve impulse quantum sensors will help to improve diagnostics.

At the end, game play and input interferes a bit with sensors, since we didn't used sensors later on we tried to focus on the game play, with using real sensors it will be different.

Finally, we have different fire visualizations (from the FastLED libraries examples) to show game states. Each game has its own color, and the base state is a fir beginning in the middle. This is the undefined state.

If you win the game, this state will either change to a spin up or spin down (fire from top or bottom) for a short while. This can be later used as inputs for other things.