The Arduino Inventor's Guide (27 page)

Note that the base of the Night-Light enclosure has a square cut out for access to wires. We also found it convenient to leave one of the four side panels off so that we could run the wires back to the larger breadboard more easily. We’ll leave it up to you whether to include that fourth panel.

Once your template pieces are copied onto your cardstock and translucent material, cut them out. We highly recommend a sharp craft knife and a metal ruler to get clean edges for your project, as shown in
Figure 5-21
. Remember craft-knife safety: always pull the blade (don’t push), and make multiple passes.

FIGURE 5-21:
Cutting out templates from cardstock

Arrange all of your pieces in front of you. You should have six pieces for the structure and four pieces for the shade material, as shown in
Figure 5-22
.

FIGURE 5-22:
Individual parts cut out and ready for assembly

First, pick up the base (the piece with the center cut out). Hold it flat in front of you and fold the left and top edges toward you to form a right angle. Fold the tab on the left edge inward and secure it to the top edge with a small amount of glue, as shown in
Figure 5-23
. Repeat this for the other four corners of the base piece, and then use the same technique to assemble the top piece.

FIGURE 5-23:
Assembling the base and top pieces

Next, fold each of the four side pieces down the middle lengthwise to form a nice 90-degree angle. There is a dotted line in the template to guide you. Once you have the top and base assembled and the sides folded, the six pieces should look like the ones in
Figure 5-24
.

FIGURE 5-24:
Assembled pieces for the Night-Light enclosure

Finally, take each corner piece and glue it to the base, as shown in
Figure 5-25
.

FIGURE 5-25:
Glue each corner piece to the base

When you’re finished gluing corners, you should have four standing corner support structures. We found it easier to glue the shades in place before gluing the top piece, so just add a small dab of glue on the inside edge of each support structure, and press the shades into place, as shown in
Figure 5-26
. You may want to use only three shades, to allow access for wires.

FIGURE 5-26:
Before adding the top piece, glue the shades into place.

When you’ve added all the panels you want, add the top piece. Simply add a small dab of glue on each corner to secure the top piece in place, as shown in
Figure 5-27
.

FIGURE 5-27:
Adding the final top piece

Now you should have a completed Night-Light enclosure like the one in
Figure 5-28
!

FIGURE 5-28:
Final Night-Light enclosure

You have a couple of options for transferring the electronics into your new project: put the breadboard and the Arduino baseplate under the Night-Light, or move just the LED inside the Night-Light. We took the second approach.

First, unplug your Arduino from the computer, and then move the RGB LED onto a mini breadboard. The mini breadboard works the same way as its bigger cousin does; it just lacks power rails and is shorter. Add jumper wires to the mini breadboard to make the connection from the LED back to your original circuit, as shown in
Figure 5-29
. Notice that each of the four legs of the RGB LED is in a separate row: one for the red leg, one for the ground leg (the longest), one for green, and one for blue.

FIGURE 5-29:
Using the mini breadboard to move the RGB LED inside the Night-Light

Now, connect the other end of each jumper wire to the breadboard row where the corresponding RGB LED leg used to be, as in
Figure 5-30
.

FIGURE 5-30:
Connecting the mini breadboard back to the main circuit

If you left one of the sides open, simply run the wires out the back of the lamp enclosure, like we did in
Figure 5-31
. Otherwise, carefully place your shade over the mini breadboard, and either tape your jumper wires to the table so the shade stays flat or make a couple of notches in the cardboard at the bottom of the enclosure for the wires to fit through.