I took my kids to Star Wars, The Force Awakens and it inspired me to build them lightsabers for Halloween – really I just wanted one for myself. To be really cool a lightsaber has to do the following things:
- Swipe on – The light slowly comes out of the handle. It doesn’t turn on instantly.
- Flash on impact – when lights sabers clash, the flash with energy.
- Energy vibration – they hum, they buzz, they are not silent.
- Color – Blue, Red, Green, Magenta are core.
To build all these things, I used an Arduino (trinket), LED strip, several buttons, sensors, and a piezo buzzer. I designed a circuit and PCB to connect all the required components, wrote the code to run the Arduino and designed a 3D printed a frame to hold it all together in the handle. The handle was made of PVC piping and the blade of polycarbonate tube and components.
