Photon 2 Lander Exquisitely Fuses Brass Wire Into a Functional IoT Sculpture
Mohit Bhoite's IoT weather display is a brass, component, and UI masterpiece.
Circuit sculptor and Particle hardware engineer Mohit Bhoite rounded out 2024 with an update to a previous project. The Photon 2 Lander is a functional IoT device constructed with brass wire, a Particle Photon 2, and an IPS TFT display. Its snazzy user interface complements this interactive art piece.
The Photon 2 Lander's two most notable visual features are Bhoite's pseudo-trademarked bare wire sculpture style and the stunning IPS 1.9" TFT display (available from Adafruit). The 20 AWG brass wires form the superstructure and act as interconnects. The best example is how the 14250 (350 mAh) Li-Ion battery (cylinder on the back) connects. A single wire is the positive, and the negative attaches through the cell's body. The wires carry power to the rest of the circuit.
As its name implies, the Photon 2 Lander's controller is a Photon 2 development board. These boards have a Realtek RTL8721DM SoC, which contains an Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller core running at 200 MHz. The SoC has two megabytes of RAM, two megabytes of application storage, and two megabytes of general-purpose flash memory.
The user interface also received an artistic treatment. After fetching the data via Wi-Fi, it elegantly displays the time, weather, and battery information. The UI design immaculately matches the overall sculpture's aesthetic. Like Bhoite's previous Photon-based Lander, we assume that the data comes via Particle's IoT platform.
Bhotie has enhanced the look of the lunar lander with several elements and added functionality to them. For instance, a 0805 surface-mount LED 'antenna' blinks, a piezo element speaker makes noise, and a PDM microphone breakout board, though currently non-functional, hints at the potential for future voice commands.
The Photo 2 Lander can also show animated GIFs! One example on Bhotie's Instagram is the Lunar Rover driving across the moon. The microSD card socket on the Adafruit display could add even more GIFs. Other notable demonstrations are a recreation of the HAL9000 and a Pong Clock.
Like Bhoite's other extraordinary sculptures, this is a one-off project with no plans for sale. However, keep an eye out for a tutorial on how to build one. In the meantime, this project page has numerous pictures to give you an idea of the meticulous steps involved.