LEDs, Servos, and Arduinos, Oh My!

You may have noticed in some of my recent projects on YouTube that I want to explore more about lighting. Specifically, I find the world of microcontrollers like Arduinos fascinating and want to integrate them into my projects. I am heavily leaning toward Star Wars projects, so my first project that demonstrated that was adding lights to my Star Wars tool cart (video linked below) and some LEDs to my mobile workbench (video coming soon). These are just the baby steps for what I have been researching and investigating for the last few months.

I took the Arduino for Makers course from I Like to Make Stuff and enjoyed it. For those who don’t know, I have a computer science background from my initial college major. While I do not code much anymore, my love for it still exists, and I want to use it more. My first projects were basic, only integrating some batteries and individual LEDs. However, my overall project list for the workshop includes a ton of integrated lighting. I want to control all the lights in my shop from a single panel, including which lights are on, what color, and how bright they are—some of the lights I want also to move and animate. Galaxy’s Edge at Disney is an excellent example of how lighting can give life to an area. I want to add that life to my workshop and home office.

I am not completely sure what all of that will look like in the end, but I am excited to get working on it all. I have two large Home Office projects I need to start on soon. Both will be Star Wars-themed and will include integrated lighting. How involved the lighting will be is to be determined, but at a minimum, I want to be able to have some color and animation and add some needed lighting to the space. I still have much to learn, but I believe that I am at the point where additional research will not help, and I just need to get started.