Mike Stein

History
A couple months ago, during a home improvement buying spree, I decided I wanted to put up some pictures. I bought a bunch of frames, including 3 small ones for photos, that I figured I'd eventually do something with.

When Bolas assigned this current project, my first idea was to create a maze in the library stacks. After actually hanging out in the stacks for a day, all the ideas I had for the maze weren't compelling enough to me. I wanted to create something like a hedgemaze, and I couldn't figure out how to build what I wanted.

My second idea was a game that I've been wanting to make for a year or so, involving cell phones, Bluetooth, and processing. After playing with that for 2 days, I realized that the learning curve for what I wanted to do with Bluetooth was greater than the time I wanted to invest in the project. I'm still tinkering with this, but on my own time frame - considerably longer than 2 weeks.

I hit on my third (and final) idea while cleaning my room last week. I found the unused picture frames, had recently seen pixelblocks at the iam8bit show, and the two just worked together.

Lessons Learned

I started off this project wanting to make 2 pixel block pictures. I figured that'd be 3 LEDs a piece. So, I wanted 6 white LEDs. Radioshack only had 5. 1 of those turned out to be a dud. And I managed to light another one on fire while buidling a circuit. Meaning I only had 3 functioning LEDs.

I also broke the glass for one of my picture frames while re-inserting it after drilling a hole for my switch.

The lesson? Because I'd set out to make 2 pictures, I had enough parts from 2 somewhat broken projects to build 1 functioning one. I