Sundown Lamp
an MIT remote Fab Lab intensive
The Setting
The class is called How to Make (Almost) Anything, and it’s pretty true to that description. Professor Neil Gershenfeld put the put the curriculum together as a true crash course in designing for and using digital fabrication technology—from 3D printers to CNC machines of all sizes and classifications—and the content has since proliferated across a global network of Fablabs that provide access to both facilities and instruction for anyone interested in learning how to make things. The class is an intense few months in a normal year, but add to that challenge some Covid-fueled campus access restrictions, and you’ve got more than a few hoops to jump through. As a participant in this experimental format, I was fascinated by the new dynamic and potential of a remotely delivered fabrication class. As a student trying to execute a well-crafted project, however, I experienced many moments of deep frustration and difficulty motivating myself to push forward. That said, the class was an incredible opportunity to stretch my understanding of digital fabrication, how to design and program the functionality of an electronic product, and how to navigate the world of designing and developing physical products in a remote setting. In short, it was hard, and I had a blast.
The Product
The Sundown Lamp is true to its name: it reacts to surrounding ambient light. As it is currently programmed, the lamp turns on when the room is dark and turns off when the room is light, but the microcontroller and the LED lights it drives can be reprogrammed to respond differently to the measurements coming off the internally mounted phototransistor. It’s just a matter of telling the controller how we want it to respond to that measurement.
So, what did I design? What parts and systems did I make? What processes did I use to bring this lamp to life? I designed and made everything but the LED ring, the 5V power cord and barrel jack, and the individual board components and wires connecting the LED to the board. Scroll down to see it all:
