Control This Beautiful DNA Desk Lamp with Gestures
Master the art of wood-bending to build this beautiful gesture-controlled DNA desk lamp designed by RoughWood81.
Wood can be surprisingly flexible when you treat it correctly, which opens up many possibilities beyond yawn-inducing straight boards and dull flat sheets of plywood. With some kerf cuts and a generous helping of moisture, you can bend wood into some really interesting shapes, like a double-helix. RoughWood81 took advantage of that fact to build this beautiful gesture-controlled DNA desk lamp.
This lamp looks phenomenal, with colorful LEDs standing out in contrast to the warm wood of the base and frame. And that frame is what makes the lamp special. The graceful curves really push the limits of wood in a way that we don’t often see. RoughWood81 explains how to achieve that using thin strips of walnut veneer. A series of cuts across the grain (made by a laser cutter) make that somewhat flexible. Wetting the wood makes it even more flexible. In that state, it is possible to wrap the wood around a cylindrical form and secure it until it dries. After that, a generous application of CA glue will lock the wood into that shape.
RoughWood81 fabricated two large spirals, then added two small spirals to each of those. The result is a U-shaped channel where the LEDs can tuck away. Once sanded and stained, each side of the double-helix looks like a solid piece of wood from more than a foot or two away.
In comparison, the base is much easier to fabricate using plywood and a laser cutter. That base contains an ESP32 development board, which controls the LEDs. The two spiraling wood helixes contain strips of WS2812B individually addressable RGB LEDs and the ESP32 can set every LED to a unique color and brightness. It does so according to user interaction through a PAJ7620U gesture sensor. By default, that can recognize nine different gestures and that is plenty for adjusting the colors, animations, and effects for this lamp.
Tiny glass bottles over the LEDs help to diffuse the light and matte acrylic spray varnish enhances that effect. Those glowing segments represents the bases that match up to join the two halves of the DNA strand.
In theory, it would be possible to display actual DNA sequences on this lamp. But we think it looks best with a pulsing rainbow animation.