Icosahedron Glows with the Power of 700 LEDs

Icosahedrons are interesting geometric constructs, consisting of 20 equilateral triangle faces, 30 edges, and 12 vertices in their convex regular configuration. As seen in the video below, this project made at the LVL1 Louisville Hackerspace not only does a great job of creating this geometric item, but imbues it with over 700 LEDs.

The device is controlled by an Arduino Mega, along with an Arduino Uno-style prototyping shield, and transfers data and power through a carefully mapped out configuration of edge slats and vertex hubs. Each edge slat holds 18 LEDs, tightly packed together in a 144 LED/meter spacing, while the vertex hub supports each hold 14 LEDs, relatively loosely spaced at 60 LEDs/meter. LEDs on the vertex hubs, however, are doubled over so that light shines from either side, though the edge slats only shine towards the middle.

At the center of everything is a 98mm stainless steel hollow sphere, which reflects light shining on it as a curved mirror. While the LED patterns are interesting in the video, one can’t help but think that the amount of light emitted would be truly stunning in real life. Besides having a total of 708 LEDs shining, the other clue to this would be the massive power supply sitting beside it, capable of producing 60A at 5V.