Lantern

11 July 2026Chapter 1

All I wanted was nicer lights

Two paper festival lanterns came with small ugly lights you turn on by hand. Replacing them turned into my first physical electronics project, and somehow ended with a circuit board at a factory.

5 August 2026

I didn't draw a face on anything. We bought this one because it already looked like a Boo from Mario. I just gave the little ghost a set of programmable LEDs, so now it glows however I tell it to. #electronics

29 July 2026

First light. I'd soldered hobby kits before, but never anything that was my own idea, with no instructions telling me which leg goes in which hole. These did exactly what I told them to.

13 July 2026

One of the living room lanterns. A look from outside first, then a peek inside at where the addressable LEDs live.

8 July 2026

My first soldering outside a hobby kit: no instructions, just an idea and a connector that needed to be on this board. A few of the joints are ugly. They all held when I tugged on them.

3 July 2026

Testing the lantern guts on the couch, because that's where the lanterns are going to live. A little XIAO chip learning to push a whole strip of addressable LEDs around.