Please support this project and donate to the Let’s Connect campaign at our 501(c)(3) non-profit Giant Peach Art Collective. All donations are tax deductible and eligible for employer matching.
Let’s Connect is a 8ft by 8ft interactive LED art installation. You can play Connect 4 against your friends or watch colorful animations.
It had it’s first appearance at UnSCruz, a regional Burning Man event in the Santa Cruz, CA area. Kids played during the day and the adults played all night while dancing at the night time stage.
The making of Let’s Connect
12/30/2022
Let’s connect is a future project combining two of my passions: The game Connect 4 and LED programming. The goal is to finish the piece by May 2023 and present at unSCruz – an official Burning Man Regional Event in Santa Cruz.
The next stop after will be a camp out at Mendocino Magic in July.
I will build an oversized connect 4 board, it will be 8×8 ft. Of course it won’t be possible to drop discs, so instead you push a button to animate a falling disc in the selected column. Instead of circle holes there will be 42 10×10″ windows that have clear acrylic plastic in them. Each will have a different mandala etched into it. All windows will be edge lit by LEDs on either side.
When the game isn’t in use the board will play by itself animations and patterns.
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1/3/2023
The mini-proto-type is ready. You can play connect 4 and it runs colorful animations, when the game isn’t in use.
1/26/2023
All the material arrived: LEDs, wires, buttons, connectors, power supplies, and the acrylic sheets. I’m currently testing how many LEDs I need for each window.
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1/29/2023
Etching the first acrylic sheet with one of the 42 mandala designs.
2/10/2023
Each etching takes about 45 minutes. It’s a slow process, but everything is coming slowly together
2/11/2023
All LEDs and wires are finished. So much soldering! The game is playable and the first animations are programmed.