My 4 year old son loves Power Rangers. It’s his birthday in a few weeks so I decided to make him a Power Rangers sword that lights up.
Build
I used the following equipment (affiliate link)
- RGB light strip
- micro:bit
- AAA JST battery cage
- 2 x M3 bolts
Build steps
- Cut 20 neopixels off the end of the strip of lights. Chop at the dotted line in the middle of the copper connection
- Pull out the red wire from the JST battery cage and solder another wire onto the connection. I powered the neopixels from the AAA batteries, not the micro:bit
- Solder the other end of this wire onto the 5V copper pad on the lights
- Solder wires onto the other two the copper pads – GND and DIN
- Wrap the other end of the wires from GND and DIN into their holes on the micro:bit
- Put the M3 bolt into the holes, tighten with a nut
- Connect the battery to the micro:bit
Code
When the micro:bit starts up it sets up the neopixels, sets a counter to 0, sets the radio up and then builds up and flashes red – the colour of the leader of the Power Rangers (my son)
When he tilts his sword right it will build up to white – ready to battle!
When he tilts his sword several times it calls on the power of the other power rangers (blue, green, yellow, purple) and then glows red.
If a monster is nearby and shooting at the sword, it will flash red as he blocks the shots (radio signals!)
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