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Project14 | Holiday Special Poll: What Projects are You Interested in Doing?

Last year, around the holiday's we ran a special event called The Holiday Special .  We'll be doing another special event this year and need your help in finalizing a theme name!  Like last year, this can be any project that means the holiday's to you.

 

 

This is a non-binding poll so feel free to use the comments below to help come up with ideas.  We're trying to get an idea of what projects people are interested in doing before we set this up!

  • in reply to 14rhb

    Rod,

     

    I once used an 8 pin PIC (I forget which one) to make a give-way for a conference (I cannot remember what the conference was about either). It operated from two AAA batteries and flashed a blue LED (tastefully) at the bottom of a laser etched Perspex logo, once a minute whenever it was dark. I had one on my desk that lasted for at least two years.(I retired before the batteries ran out). I never really saw it flash as I always had the lights on. Getting the interrupts to work to knock it out of sleep mode was the hardest as the programmer I used stopped interrupts when it was plugged in.

  • in reply to dubbie

    Hi Dubbie,

     

    I bought a load of SOT-23 PIC microcontrollers for something similar a few years back - I planned on doing a small program to 'flicker' an LED or two to look like a candle. The more I made the better it would look. I planned on letting them run asynchronously with a few random values but would have powered from low voltage to ensure they didn't do flat over the holidays.

     

    Rod

  • I like tasteful LED illuminated Christmas objects, like small houses, little lanterns, hanging tree decorations and similar, but I have always wanted them to turn on by themselves, probably by detecting the light level (as they always work best in the dark) so that I do not have to turn them on and off, plus I want them to be battery powered so they last all Christmas. I also want them to be as low cost as possible so that I can make as many as I want and distribute them far and wide. It will mean creating some very low power electronics. I like to use Arduino IDE so this will mean some unusual programming as most Arduino modules do not have a very low power mode.

     

    Dubbie

  • Thinking of doing an evil Santa Claus.

     

    DAB

  • I had a weird idea for a google maps display fed by an Arduino sending faked GPS coordinates to make a Santa Tracker Live Map...

    just have to turn the pointer arrow into a sleigh and reindeer........

     

    In reality though I hope my holidays will be quiet with my family. Maybe the Charlie Brown Christmas Movie on the TV and a Chambord hot chocolate for dessert.......

  • in reply to 14rhb

    I have to shake my hips with the dancing santa's every time we see one, my kids laugh at me for it, but hey it makes me happy

  • in reply to littleben1

    I had gotten this idea by recently making my daughter a solar nightlight that automatically turns itself on and off by the amount of light hitting the solar panel, so I figured I could use that run to an Arduino with a relay board setup to on and off Christmas decoration lights.

  • Going to be working on a way to make the Christmas house lights be turned on and off by solar so that when the sun goes down the lights automatically turn on and off when the sun rises. I know this can be down by store bought switches but why not play around with my arduinos and diy one myself

  • I like to see those animatronic displays at shopping centres and in store windows over the holiday period. Sometimes they are a set of moving furry characters and sometimes a detailed miniature village complete with lights and snow. So plenty of servos, stepper motors, LEDs and mechanical linkages fun can be had (all topped off with a nice SBC to control the action).

     

    Rod