Celestial Graduation Cap

December 2016

An increasingly popular tradition for graduates is to decorate their graduation caps, making them into expressions of their journey through school. For years before graduation, I had envisioned making my grad cap into a fun microelectronics project. However, in classic Erica style, I was a week away from commencement uncertain of the design. I wanted something that represented where I had been the past four (and a half) years, but also where I was headed post-graduation. And it had to include LEDS. I knew that much. I finally decided on a space theme. I would make white LEDs twinkle amidst a black backdrop. The idea was to imply “shoot for the stars”, which is quite literally the goal for a space-loving engineer like myself.

As for the technical specifics…

I used three sides of LEDs to mimic dimension of stars near and far. I then created four loops and coded them to fade in and out at different intervals to simulate a twinkling effect. If you are interested, the code is on my GitHub. The microcontroller I choose was basically an Arduino knockoff called RedBoard. These are about $20 on Adafruit’s online store. Adding all of the costs for LEDs, protoboards, soldering equipment, the controller, switch, and battery together was around $100.

The execution of the cap was quite interesting. I decided to run wires from the LEDs on the top of the cap to the RedBoard on a lanyard worn under my gown. Also on the lanyard, taped to the controller, was a 9V battery and switch, for obvious purposes. As you can see from the in-progress pictures, this was a nightmare to put together. I hacked together protoboards, meticulously scattered and labeled LED placements, frantically soldered, and neatly covered with glittered black foam. The result was awesome. I finished just in time to rush out the door to attend commencement; there was no time for fixes. In fact, by the time my name was announced to walk across that stage and accept my diploma, I had been awake for 28 hours, 12 of which were spent completely on soldering my labor of love together. The finished product was worth the effort and will be a project I never forget.