I am a sucker for things that light up, blink, flash, or otherwise visually grab attention. In the past, I’ve utilized Arduinos and LEDs to spruce up my own projects, so I am naturally attracted to a book on how to do more of them, which is where 10 LED Projects for Geeks: Build Light-Up Costumes, Sci-Fi Gadgets, and Other Clever Inventions comes in.
10 LED Projects For Geeks opens by explaining the technology behind LEDs and how they work. By taking it to a basic level, it introduces the beginner to the technology involved and how it works, and for the more familiar, it works as a refresher on LEDs. Once the light emitting diodes are explained, some of the other technologies utilized in the book are presented, including processors like the Arduino microcontrollers and Raspberry Pi computers.
With the core technologies explained, the reader is presented with 10 projects they can build. Starting with a beginner project to do basic illumination and basic reactive circuits (the first project is actually four small projects), the projects become progressively more advanced. From decorative devices to cosplay gear, the different projects not only teach how to program the LEDs – not just basic LEDs, but infrared, neopixels, and more – but how to do basic programming to make them work.
What I found most interesting in 10 LED Projects For Geeks was the diversity of projects. The book did not just show how to make lights flash and blink, but also how to react and control their environments. One project showed how lights could light up based on sounds in the room, while another used an IR LED to all the project to be used as a remote control to interact with a real world device (an air conditioner as an example in the book). The 10 projects are written by a variety of authors (8 authors for the 10 projects), so it allows for different concepts and ideas across the different project creators.
I have had multiple projects that I have wanted to utilize LEDs for, either to enhance what I was already creating or to just show off LED based concepts. Reading 10 LED Projects For Geeks allowed me to realize some of those ideas and saw ways I could utilize what I read to enact my existing ideas. The book is a great resource for how to use LEDs and program them, and I look forward to working with the concepts within it.
