The party button project is a great, interactive way to get newcomers excited about working with electronics. When the button is pressed, just like crossing the road in real life, the slow beeps begin. Instead of the classic ‘cross the road now’ sound, the beeps transition into one of ten randomly assorted party tracks, ranging from ‘Bag Raiders – Shooting Stars’ to ‘Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight’. Meanwhile, the hacked ‘walking man’ lights up in a rainbow of colour cycling RGB.
It’s a fun project for an active makerspace, where new visitors can experience creative upcycling in an interactive way. Currently the project is retired from it’s its present display area with the COVID-19 precautions in mind where we aren’t encouraging active touching of surfaces, but it will return at the right time.
This project began when a friend of mine got hold of some old ‘walking man’ traffic lights after a traffic light upgrade in town. He gifted me one, and I had to do something special with it.
After re-fitting the old green lights with colour-cycling RGB LEDs (no microcontroller required) I knew this project had to go bigger.
I was able to pick up a clear light dome at the right size ($15) and a real crosswalk button ($100) from Aliexpress. To manage the electronics, I’ve used an Arduino Mega (but a Uno will do) and a Sparkfun WAVTrigger Board to manage the sounds. I also needed a small speaker, and I mounted the system on a PVC pipe with old swivel chair base for easy transport.
The electronics are mounted inside two sheets of laser cut, clear acrylic. Many projects have their ‘ugly’ electronics tucked away in some kind of enclosure, but I like the idea of participants seeing the electronics as part of the display. This means that you can easily explain how it works, pointing and explaining at each component in turn.
If you like this project, I have a couple of walking man lights spare. Send me an email at [email protected] and let me know what you’d like to build!
