May 31, 2012

Graduation Glasses

For my high school graduation, students walk onto the stage in pairs, and are expected to do something interesting (most do some variation of a dance move or handshake) when they meet in the middle, before going to their seats.  Having been to my sister's graduation last year, I knew ahead of time that I wanted to make my entrance more interesting and less awkward than the ones I had seen.

I built two pairs of glasses - one for me, one for my walk in partner - that, when turned on, display "2012" across the two pairs.  


I started out by getting two cheap plastic shutter glasses, 100 super bright 30 degree red LED's, and four 1x2 AAA battery holders:


LED layout:


Soldered "1":





All wired up:



Both done:


I scavenged some switches from broken power supplies, and attached them to the frame:





Apparently the graduation photographer's camera wasn't set up to capture bright lights well, but I've been told the looked good in person:

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