An Origami Sunrise Lamp Is a Bright Idea for a Kid's Room

According to Russell Eveleigh’s project write-up, “It’s a fairly common problem for kids to wake up and not know what time it is.” Thus using “sleep trainer clocks” is fairly common. The basic concept is that a glowing sun is displayed during the day, while stars are shown at night in a different color. Although this type of setup wouldn’t get you to a meeting on time, it does at least give children some sense if they should stay in bed.

After a less-than-optimal experience with passed down sleep trainer clocks, Eveleigh decided to take matters into his own hands, creating a projected day and night scene with a Raspberry Pi Zero W, NeoPixel ring, and origami.

A geodesic dome – created out of paper using a “snapology” technique, which requires no glue or other fixturing methods – surrounds the light source. When it shines through this folded pattern, it breaks up the light into a complex pattern, projecting an intricate array of lights on the walls and ceiling.

To determine whether it’s day or night, the Pi checks Eveleigh’s website once every minute via the crontab. While the process is simply a computer talking to another computer, he still finds it a little strange, like the web server might get annoyed at the constant pinging! As shown in the video below, the build looks like a lot of fun, and will hopefully be useful to keep the kids in bed just a little bit longer.