Audio Visual (AV) Services teams up with iCREATE again through John Berwick, a staff member from their Frey Hall Service Counter location.

John started on this project in May 2017 while following up on AV’s other previous projects with iCREATE – namely, the one that custom 3D-printed stands for their charging stations that can be found around Frey Hall. It was then that he heard about iCREATE’s new laser cutter on facility.

He worked on creating a box with lights on it. The goal was that it would be used to switch from red to green when the rooms were finished being checked. This made it clear what which rooms still had to be done.

After a couple of weeks in the Innovation Lab, John was able to fashion a wooden box with lights and switches, connected to a power source (battery). iCREATE was able to supply the balsa wood, which our staff member Ahsanul Torza helped to cut into the box template using the laser cutter. The box template was found through a website that took dimensions and created a laser cutter compatible file. John added on the text, and specified the placement and sizes of the holes for the lights and switches.

The soldered and assembled lights, wires, and resistors were then hot glued to the back of the wood, and enclosed in the rest of the wooden box. John found these supplies through Adafruit, leading the project to cost a total amount of $50-60, relatively inexpensive to create.

For when it’s being used, John soldered a USB male cable to an iPad charger to connect it to power, which provides 5V. He intends to mount it in the Frey Hall Service Counter office at the back of the office where the box is designed to fit exactly the width between the whiteboard and the door. This way, it would be easy to see at a quick glance.

“Buildings are not closed down to the degree that we would like and need to them to be. Lights are left on, projectors are left on, and chairs are out of place. This project is a really cool idea to benefit the school. It won’t just be something to look at – it’s going to be a project that’s being used.”

John is looking forward to the completion and installment of this in the Frey Hall AV location. “One last touch we’d work on is adjusting the brightness. The lights are really bright right now, but if it [the employment of this project] works well, we’re planning on coming back to make more of these for the rest of the facilities.”

John holding up his creation at the Innovation Lab.

The boxes mounted up in use in the Frey location.

Modifications were added later to adjust the brightness, through these that John are holding.