Inspiration
There were a few very different ideas going through my head for this project, including infinity mirrors, island6 pieces, and Neon LED signs, as shown below. I considered trying to put all of these ideas into one, but found that quite difficult to envision.
Materials Required
After spending some time thinking about my ideas, I found my heart set on making a Neon LED Sign. It just makes sense while I am still at this school and have access to resources such as a laser cutter. I plan on using the laser cutter to make a base out of plexiglass to hold the LED strips in place. This will be a new experience for me, as I have never used the laser cutter at WPI before. I will definitely have to do some research and reach out to some friends/other people around campus that have such experience. I plan on making this sign to be as large as possible, and hopefully I will be able to do that using the WPI printer. I believe the maximum size of the glass can be 2′ x 3′, but I may be wrong.
There are many tutorials on YouTube of how to make your own Neon LED Sign, so it should be fairly easy for me to figure out how to put it together. Some of these videos even show how to prepare an SVG file for laser cutting, which can be done in Adobe Illustrator.
LED light strips can be bought on Amazon for a fairly cheap price of less than $2/foot. They can be cut into pieces as small as 2.5 cm, which will allow me to make small details and sharp corners.
Mock Up
Shown below is a mock up of my design concept. It shows a die moving towards a cup, to represent a popular game at my Fraternity house called Die. Different parts of the sign will light up at different times in order to make an animation effect. For this, I plan on using a timer or maybe an Arduino to light these different parts up. There must be a YouTube video showing how to pull this off in the most effective manner.
Questions
What else can I do to make my concept even better?
Does anyone have any experience using a laser cutter for bg pieces of plexiglass/know where I would start?
Great idea! The design of the piece looks very “classic neon sign”. Looking forward to seeing how you develop it. In terms of a laser cutter, you can easily get trained to use the one in the innovation studio – stop by and they will help you get that set up.