For those folks just tuning in, I added a shelf to the corner of their corner of the office a couple summers ago. The overhang blocks the already-not-abundant natural lighting of a NE-facing window. The "Mark I" was extremely prototype-y. Like, 5mm-LEDs-in-breadboards prototype-y. I wish I were making that up. (Moral of the story: Never underestimate the longevity of V1.0.) The "Mark II"'s design supercedes that at the cost of some duplication, yet with fewer components overall. What's shown above is mirrored by a twin just 30cm or so to the right.
Anyhoo, Adafruit -- the Great-Grand-Godmother of every winky-blinky cosplay project on the planet, or so it seems -- batched their NeoPixels into a handy ring. And, to their credit, each of these 12 itty-bitty-winky-blinkies punches well above its weight @18mA a pop. The office walls are mostly a darker green, so I was initially disappointed in the lighting levels. But after the (white) table, (white) cages, and (mostly-white) cover-cloth were all back in place, I had nothing to complain about. And that's just with 24 pixels.
They also massively streamline the design overall: Base (white) lighting, rotating RGB (to vary the light-spectrum), motion-activated night-lighting, and a top-of-the-hour "disco" light-show to keep an eye on the RTC drift is now handled with just six wires instead of a couple dozen. So, good job, Adafruit: I'm sorry I didn't realise that the PixelRings I bought were knock-offs. I'll know to check next time.
Importantly, this project cemented my affection for the "Boarduino" form-factor -- by which I mean an Arduino project running from an Atmega328P-PU chip plugged into a full- or half-size breadboard. (You can do the same with smaller chips like the ATTiny 24/25/44/45/84/85 chips, if you're willing to make certain trade-offs in computing power and features.) The flexibility (from a wiring standpoint) is pretty much unbeatable.
But there's another kind of flexibility I've lost my heart to, and that's just the pure freedom from a particular MCU form-factor.
Don't get me wrong: For the initial coding/debugging, the full-size UNO is my trusty go-to. Mainly because, even with ZIF sockets, toggling between the "programmer" breadboard and the actual project breadboard is a PITA. Also, plugging a Trinket into a baby-breadboard and wiring it up to all the other widgets has the satisfying feel of solving a puzzle.
That being said, I kind of live in Perpetual Prototype mode with these projects. (Off the top of my head, I can already think of at least three things I'm smacking myself upside the head for not doing differently -- most notably, using bigger screw-sizes.) And, when all's said and done, I can. Everything about this project is generic and re-usable. Even the PLA 3D-printed offsets used to mount stuff onto the underside of the shelf can be recycled by melting and re-extruding.
Part of me cringes at condemning the waste I see in the name of hands-on technical education. Yes, learners should feel free to make mistakes, up to and including the dreaded "magic smoke" that is a rite of passage in electronics. But trashing a new toothbrush to make a bristle-bot that will end up in the ocean as soon as the coin-cell battery wears out (or it ceases to be amusing -- whichever comes first) also makes me grind my heckin' teeth. Because the unintended lesson taught is obsolescence. Any child will inevitably pick up that lesson many times over in modern society without any lesson-plan, spank you very much. :~/
The DIY folks I follow seem to delight in passing around upcycling hacks. E.g. the boy who repurposed a computer fan to charge his phone while bicycling to school. Or the girl who hacked together a foot-powered washing machine to power through that chore in less time. Or even the junkyard/repair-shop trade in salvaged parts...the kind of place where you bring your own box and pay in cash (and/or beer). Love 'em all. Really, I do.
But I'm talking about something slightly different, something that we in the First World(TM) are typically privileged to do, and that's make stuff with brand-new (or gently used) parts. Maybe it would help if we had a more generic term than "Boarduino," something that encapsulates the ethic of intentional re-use. For now, I'm going to have to roll as a soi-dissant "perpetual prototyper" (in lieu of "maker" or "hacker"), but I'm definitely in the market for something better. And the nanosecond I find a better badge, I will wear it proudly. Heck, if it's on-fleek enough, I might even get the tattoo.
