Sculptural Table Lamp

This interactive table light fixture was inspired by the work of famous mid-century designer, Gerrit Rietveld. Each panel is touch-activated and is independent from one another, allowing for endless color possibilities. Have fun making and playing with it!

Materials

– Standalone 5-Pad Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout - AT42QT1070

– 1/16 in translucent white acrylic sheets

– Arduino Uno

– wires

– breadboard

– breadboard wires

– Electrical tapes

– Heat shrink tubings

– 5mm white-based LED RGB light strips

– Acrylic adhesive

– Conductive foil

Tools

– Band saw

– Soldering kit

– Wire stripper

– Sandpaper

– Alligator clips

– Third hand tool

– Heat gun

Print out the patterns of the 3 panels and use them to draw the outline onto the protective paper layer of the acrylic sheets.

If you have access to a laser cutter, this template can be use to for the cuts (skip step 2).

It's important to make sure the blade your bandsaw is equipped with is the thin with fine tooth kind. Thick, jagged ones could destroy your acrylic. Take your time and slowly push the acrylic sheet through the machine with steady hands.

Once finish, sand the rough edges with sander or manually with medium grit sandpaper.

Adhere the conductive tape and LED strip to their respective acrylic strip like pictured above. Their wires, after soldering, should extend out from the same corner. Once done with soldering, glue all sides together using plastic adhesive. Be very gentle and try to not squeeze too much at once since this glue eats away at the plastic very quickly.

Braid the wires for a clean finish. For an even more minimalist look, you can use the same color for all 4 strands. Just make sure to mark each one so that you can differentiate them.

Repeat until you complete 3 panels.

1. Download Arduino:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/software

2. Follow this Tinkercad to build your circuit:
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/44sIjZTa8Et

3. Plug Arduino Uno your computer, run the code attached below with Arduino and you should achieve this effect. The animation has 5 modes: off, red, green, blue, and warm white, each activated by tapping on the side with the conductive foil underneath.

Have fun experimenting with different color combinations and configurations!