Let’s say you’ve got a fun little organization that does things together under a collective branding or banner. Maybe you want to celebrate that fact with some visually appealing signage? Well, that’s pretty much how [Jack] of the Purdue Hackers felt, so he and the gang put together a sizable logo sign to advertise their makerspace.
[Jack] explains that The Sign, as it is known, embodies the spirit of the Purdue Hackers. Basically, it’s about making something cool and sharing it with the world. He then outlines how they came to develop a “shining monument” to their organization with the use of LEDs and 3D printed components. The blog post explains how the group began with small prototypes, before stepping up to build a larger version for display in their makerspace window. It also chronicles the twists and turns of the project, including budget snarls and PCB errors that threatened to derail everything.
Ultimately, though, the Purdue Hackers prevailed, and The Sign has been shining bright ever since. Files are on GitHub for the curious, because it’s all open source! Meanwhile, if you’ve been cooking up your own neat signage projects, don’t hesitate to drop us a line!
As a European I am confused, the sign looks great, but I was thinking first about some similar named thing that may or may not have caused an opioid epidemic in the USA.
As someone who went to Purdue, I completely understand… Gotta clarify every time… Between that and growing up in the Columbia River Gorge and having to say “not the amphitheater” when I tell people I’m from the Gorge, or “not D.C., the state” when I say I’m from Washington, I need to find a less pedantic life…
What? This piqued my curiosity, but I wasn’t able to find what you’re talking about via Google. I can tell you our drug epidemic was definitively not caused by a sign, though.
They broke Tetris and call it a win …
Nothing in the article (or comments so far) about it being a glider?
Reading the article it would seem that the project team were unaware of a lot of things.
After reading this comment, I made some edits to the post’s introduction to make it clearer what the Sign actually, physically is. Give it another read!
To answer your question: Purdue Hackers’ logo is a Conway glider, and the Sign is a meter-tall Purdue Hackers logo. So, very intentional for it to take the shape of a glider :D
I seldom get across the river to see anything over there, I wonder where it is (Bechtel center). The 80’s era mall near Purdue is coming down, more high rise. We have something on the east side more incubator than bench space. It’s right downtown by the library across from city hall, quite visible.
Needs more diffusing the squiggles are visible, like the white stuff from broken LCD TV’s. Could have used one of those TV panels lit with color artwork applied done in a day, but where is the hack? If it’s a one off board why not lay some solid wire on the thin traces and make it do?
Really happy to see them proud of their work – and to see it all out there on GitHub.
On first glance my brain refuses to see anything but a coiled LED strips inside off the shelf tupperware :|
It’s great to see young people working on things like this. I agree with Andrew that they didn’t seem to be aware of other technologies. They could have used two Heltec V3 LORA units and Meshtastic. The sign is mounted right on a window … any node with the channel and key could send commands to the sign. Another remote ESP32 with serial to a Heltec device could command the colors, intensity, and anything else without anyone even being in the room or near the sign. The complicated networking and coding they struggled with could have been done with simple Arduino IDE.