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When you go to the movies ever notice the frames they have mounted into the walls with the backlights. I've had a look into these light frames before and found that they A) cost hundreds (or are so cheap you think they will burn down the house) and B) Require drivers and cables hanging down from your wall if you don't poke holes into your gyprock.

Given how bright you can get LEDs and considering you can run a whole bunch off a single battery I started to wonder if I could build a self contained light box picture frame using LEDS. Using some online calculators for the resistors and such needed to run this off a 9v for example, I cobbled together the below prototype.

The prototype only uses 4 leds and 2x 150k resistors, 1x cheap frame from Ikea of some thickness, the switch was one I took out of a broken hdd caddy but any switch would do. With a standard paper print out in the frame you can see the lighting of individual LEDS, but I improved this a little by adding some layers of paper so its 3x and closer to movie poster thickness. I also covered the backplate with the shiney side of Aluminum Foil to help spread the light.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The next larger version would have 20x leds paired up and wired the same as opposed to only 4x but would have LEDS up the middle pointing away as well as the sides. I expect I will have to mount them onto the backboard instead of the frame and am wondering if I should perhaps use the hotglue gun I used to mount the 2 LED boards to diffuse the light more... EL sheet would of provided a more even lighting but there is cabling for the driver required to power it.

I had actually planned to look at this a while ago but the Arduino stuff was just that much more interesting. Besides I have to wait for an answer on the missing part of the screenkey I bought. What for? Just have to wait.

If your not familar with Arduino you really should be, its a type of programmable microcontroller which Ive heard described as the Duct Tape of the Electronics World. These handy microcontrollers which come in many shapes and varieties allow hobbists to create their own devices for custom projects from RFID Catdoors to UAVs.

A frequent item on Hackaday these microcontrollers have been used in many projects which I have kept track of for a while now. Until I saw this project which relates to Geocaching which you may have heard of and if you havent now you will in the future no doubt when it becomes pop culture or better to put it 'trendy'.

Finally biting the bullet I decided I wanted to make a puzzle box like this but instead of 1 location I made it use 5 "seals" that have to be opened in order before the box spring loaded catch would open and reveal. The box itself hasnt been opened yet its currently with friends for a birthday present who have been fishing for hints as soon as the very next day.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The rules are simple, you turn on the box it tells you how far you are from the location (no heading just a distance). Using triangulation you can work out where the location would be within say 500m. The triggers on mine work with being within 250m of the defined location even though I could of set it to be within 10m. I would put a map up of all the locations and the route but they havent opened the box yet and might be try and cheat off here.

When they have completed their journey (on sat 12/12 to be precise they have to solve it by) I will put more details up on here. But there are 5 seals for them to locate which should take about 3-4 hours as no two seals are more then 50km apart. There is a few failsafes but the one I like is there is a specific location you can take the box to and if you are within that very small spot it will default open there only.

The box itself is a wooden one that was from a pewter stein with a nice lid that I managed to conceal all the electronics, screen, gps, servo and batteries (2x 9v) inside of. I did have some problems with voltage that took me ages to work out so the version of code loaded on the box at the moment has a small problem with a debug left in so it will turn off after finding a seal instead of cycling to look for the next seal, give a distance THEN turn off.

If you want to see what the code looks like you can see it here although I did use a the GPS and serial libraries from Arduiniana who came up with the idea. I have learnt a bit doing this such as how bad I am at soldering and that I need to use heatshrink more, but a good solid project I think and Im already thinking of other stuff I can make of a custom nature.

Every year I have friends who have a Halloween party and every year about 12 hours before it I realise that I need to do something asap. This year I was prepared after looking at instructables for sometime I decided that Drunken Genius Tony Stark is a costume that would suit.

11 LEDs some AA batteries and a lot of solder/glue later I had a nice glowy Halloween outfit which I used that year and may even stow it for easy use another year. My original idea was to run off a single coin battery with a pair of leads and some electrical tape but sadly I seem to be a terrible solder'er and needed more tape and a change of tact. Still, enough to no doubt power a mach 1 armor I'm sure (or atleast get me to the bar for a refill).