On April 25th, we had the privilege to host a workshop by Mohit Bhoite on building free-form circuit sculptures. During the workshop, Mohit walked us through a small project and covered planning, materials, methods and tips. By the end of the event we each had started our own "SevenSeg" bot.
You can make fun things while you're stuck at home!
Jenn reached out to Mohit Bhoite, an electronics engineer at Particle who makes freeform circuit sculptures for fun. He agreed and was excited about teaching a workshop to us!
He partnered with MTRAS to do a Zoom webinar workshop, building his SevenSeg bot design on April 25, which was National Sculpture Day! Jenn also worked hard to get and deliver kits before. Despite vendor and shipping delays due to supply chain issues in this era of COVID-19, she was able to help produce a fantastic event!
We are also very thankful to Mohit for agreeing to share his knowledge with us. To learn more about what he does you can view our recording of the event below. You can also view his gallery of projects on his website:
https://www.bhoite.com/
or on his twitter account:
https://twitter.com/mohitbhoite?lang=en
0:00 - Introduction
2:55 - Mohit Bhoite's background and overview of circuit sculptures
16:20 - Overview of Cold Solder Joints
17:23 - View of today's project end goal device
18:32 - Getting Started - The display
26:36 - Designing your template
45:36 - Differences in the kit displays
53:25 - Making your first bends
1:01:22 - Some inspiration sources
1:09:42 - Alignment methods and and overview of related projects and jigs
1:18:33 - First solder joints - Getting your display connected
1:26:49 - Soldering the digit connections to the ItsyBitsy
1:32:46 - Adding the current limiting resistors
1:43:27 - Testing the board
1:46:42 - Setting up the Arduino IDE
1:51:10 - Homework
1:54:16 - Conclusion
Links:
The work of Mohit Bhoite - https://www.bhoite.com/
The display used in this video (KYX-4401BS) - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32584305945.html
Brass Wire - https://www.hardwareandtools.com/k-and-s-engineering-8160-1-32-inch-by-12-inch-solid-brass-rod-jela-6836.html
Setting up the Arduino IDE for the Adafruit ItsyBitsy - https://learn.adafruit.com/introducting-itsy-bitsy-32u4/arduino-ide-setup
Example Code
*Must change the line for hardware type (line 29) to byte hardwareConfig = COMMON_ANODE;
https://github.com/mohitbhoite/sev-seg-mtras/blob/master/sev-seg-mtras.ino
Inspiration - Jiří Praus - https://jiripraus.cz/