I bet I can make that

Bay Area Maker Faire, 2025. There is a dark room at that thing, and in the dark room was a crew showing off little LED tiles. I don’t remember who originally made them, which I feel bad about, because they were a very creative and brilliant crew.

My kid was enamored with them. He usually isn’t into stuff like that, so I got him one. It was awesome, and he kept playing with it.

Which meant I got about two seconds with it myself. That was enough for the thought I always have. Hey, I bet I can make something like that.

The warmup I didn’t know was a warmup

A year earlier I would have had no idea how to start. I had never made a single thing with a circuit in it until two paper lanterns talked me into learning to solder. With the help of AI I have been able to level up my electronics enough to even attempt this one.

The lanterns were a strand. One line of addressable LEDs running end to end, each light taking its own orders. A 1D pixel array.

Glint is the same idea folded into a square. A 2D pixel array, sixty-four lights in an 8x8 grid. I love playing with these things and building on the previous one.

What it actually does

It is a lil LED toy, motion sensitive, with a bunch of modes:

• Tilt it and fluid sloshes around inside. An actual flip fluid sim, running on the tile.
• A custom tilt maze, where you steer through by leaning the thing.
• A marquee, for scrolling words past.
• An art viewer. Glint is its own wireless access point, so you connect straight to the tile, make something, and upload it.

Double tap to change scenes.

The name was picked by the AI. I hate naming things.

The mouse and the cookie

So did I make that? To myself, yeah, I fulfilled that “I bet I can make that” feeling. But it goes like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, where there is always one more thing to make better.

Mine is about three to four times thicker than the original. The physics code doesn’t feel as responsive as theirs either. Those are things to keep working on.

The whole thing is also built on an 8x8 panel with plans for 16x16, so the hardware already supports the bigger one.

And now I’m recognizing the brilliance of those original makers.