LED Constellation Art Project
I created this project for the art & craft component of SF College’s Space Camp.
After a brief brainstorm session, we decided on some sort of LED constellation art project. I had been playing a lot with LEDs and I’ve always been interested in art. I quickly began prototyping, and while I was hoping that we could hard wire the LEDs, I assumed it would be too difficult for inexperienced students.
LED Constellation Prototypes
I probably should have started with getting the paint ‘just right,’ but instead I grabbed some black and glitter paint and did the quickest job I could…so that I could figure out how to light up the stars.
My first attempt was with copper tape and SMD LEDs. Fail.
My second attempt was with copper tape and Chibitronic LED stickers. Not bad, but I thought it might be too much of a dexterity issue to get them onto canvas. Fail.
My third attempt had me stripping copper wire and twisting LEDs. Success!!! But…way too difficult for young kids. Not to mention all of those exposed wires.
Background Knowledge
For my class, I was lucky enough to have two sessions that lasted an hour and a half. This left plenty of time for discussion and work time. On the first day, we talked about a variety of constellations, but I asked them over and over again, “what do you notice?” I wanted them to see that the night sky was made up of many different colors. There were heavy concentrations of stars in certain areas, but depending on the time, or location that the picture was taken, the stars might have been a light sprinkling.
I wasn’t teaching about the constellations (thank goodness), merely reinforcing the other lessons they were getting from the head of the Planetarium (the guy with the PhD in Astronomy). Thankfully, I found the series, ‘Crash Course for Kids,’ and showed my students the videos on groups of stars and the one on how to locate constellations. Since we were painting and doing other art activities on the first day of camp, I wanted to draw their attention to the colors and patterns. To truly observe.
The students finished their canvases that first day and by our second session, they were dry and ready to light up. On that second day, I turned my focus to discussing circuits, LEDs and coin cell batteries. I even brought my homemade circuit blocks.
How to Circuits Work?
Since I really wanted to make this an art & tech project, I built the second day’s lessons around circuits and batteries. We started with a discussion on what they knew about LEDs and coin cell batteries, passed out some single LEDs and watched these two videos from Adafruit’s Circuit Playground: B is for Battery and D is for Diode.
Putting it all Together
We unwrapped the micro LED light sets, and everyone put in the batteries to make sure the lights worked. Surprisingly, they all did.
The coordinators felt that it was safer if the adults used the exacto knives to cut into the canvases, so the kids marked their starts by a little “x.” Then, off they went to the pre-heated hot glue guns to secure the lights to their canvas.
Supplies
8 x 10 art canvas
Paintbrushes & Palette
Toothbrush for flicking on glitter
Paint (see picture below)
Newspapers or butcher paper to cover table
Hot glue gun and glue
Exacto knife
Pencil for tracing constellation
Tracing Paper
Paper to test carbon paper
Instructions
Hand out small bits of carbon paper and let the kids figure out how it works.
Choose a constellation from one of the activity books or draw your own.
Trace or draw your constellation onto the tracing paper. Set aside.
Note – If drawing, be sure your constellation fits in the middle of the canvas. BE MINDFUL of the wooden frame. The lights have to poke through from the back.
Place the carbon paper (dark side down) in the middle of the canvas. Set your traced constellation on top and retrace the constellation with your pencil. Remove the carbon paper and see that your constellation is on your canvas.
Circle the stars so that students know to paint around them. Have students write their name on the back of the canvas. Include the name of the constellation, direction and months that you can find it in the sky. Example: Cygnus, December – February, facing North
Play around with the paints – mix orange and blue and see how you can get darker blue. Add gray to black, what happens? You can mix glitter paint into the black to get very subtle sparkles.
Paint your canvas. Paint the sides first so they can dry.
Take your canvas outside and bring along the toothbrush, the glitter paint and some red paint. Love the red stars.
The stiff bristles on an old toothbrush are used to make a nice splatter effect of stars.
Set aside and let dry for 24 hours.