Taking time to build a triangle-grid clock

I like what's possible with triangles.

Playing with rectangular blinky grids is super fun, and I've made a weather monitor and a pulse-oximeter with those.

But there's something additionally awesome about the pattern possibilities with triangle pixels.

So when I saw a Hackaday post about building a clock display with LED triangles, I was hooked.

The short story is that I made it! It now lights up my living room with dazzling animations and a funky time display.

The longer story involves perseverance made possible by my coronavirus lockdown.

Make Every Week: Distance Sensor Demo

I stumbled on a fun, visceral way to show how Arduinos can sense and respond.

In preparation for a presentation at the Online News Association Conference in Los Angeles, I grabbed a Ping distance sensor I had in a bin. The Ping works like a bat — it emits an inaudible, high-frequency sound, and listens for the sound to bounce off an object. The round-trip time between ping and reflection reveals the distance.

Make Every Week: Sewing-Machine Circuits

Sewing by hand can be tedious. Sewing by hand with conductive thread is frustrating.

The thread I use is almost woolly, so if you use too much at once, it twists and tangles in itself. Ugh.

For a project I have in mind, there would be much sewing with conductive thread. But we recently got a sewing machine, and this weekend I thought … heeeeey! The thread actually comes in little bobbins. Maybe I could load one in the machine?

Make Every Week: DIY Accent Lighting

For years, we’ve talked about adding accent lighting to our living room — particularly under the TV on the wall, to light up a small shelf underneath.

I’ve put it off. I just didn’t want to deal with the wiring, the mounting, the falling down, the mounting again. Even finding a fixture was daunting.

But then I spotted these adhesive-backed LED strips! Which can be powered by a 9-volt battery. Excellent.