Making the Transformers Matrix of Leadership

If you grew up in the ‘80s like Bob from I Like to Make Stuff and are reading this blog, there’s a huge chance that you loved (and probably still) love Transformers. These animated characters inspired many of that generation to go into technical careers, and even though talking transforming robots don’t yet exist, you can be sure that someone is working on it!

In the present day though, Bob decided to make a prop from the Tranformers movie called the “Matrix of Leadership.” Though this video deals mostly with the physical build, involving 3D modeling, printing, and lots of painting and surface treatment, at its heart is an Adafruit Trinket powering a NeoPixel Ring.

Code for the project is available here, and it’s pretty amazing that a build like this is possible without a lot more effort put into the electronics and programming!