UmbrLED

Inspiration

Light is beautiful. Light combined with movement is even more beautiful. Art is a way of communicating without words, and that is what our umbrella actually does. It creates beauty and it makes people happy. (Like us, we wanted to prove ourselves we would be able to make something like this!)

What it does

Our umbrella has a rotation sensor set in the handler and LEDs in the screen. When the user rotates the umbrella, the LEDs show a certain light pattern.

How we built it

We attached led strings by sewing some fabric to the screen of the umbrella. We connected the LED to a ESP8266 controller and placed the rotation sensor in the umbrella handler. Then we coded some program that allows us to display different light patterns depending on the rotation’s speed and direction.

Challenges we ran into

We did not have enough materials and had to ask other teams to donate some of their stuff. We had to find a way to place the battery and the sensor in the handler. Getting the thing to work was also not that easy.

Accomplishments we are proud of

We had never used a rotation sensor before and getting it to control a LED pattern was challenging but very gratifying at the end.

what we learned

We learned how to use rotation sensors, how to attach things to an umbrella so that it is still usable after removing our electronics,

What's next for UmbrLED

Built With

• esp8266
• led-strip
• sewing-machine
• swift