The 2025 One Hertz Challenge is really heating up with all kinds of projects that do something once every second. [The Baiko] has given us a rather abstract entry that looks like a plane…if you squint at it under the right conditions.
It’s actually quite an amusing abstract build. If you’ve ever seen planes flying in the night sky, you’ve probably noticed they all have similar lights. Navigation lights, or position lights as they are known, consist of a red light on the left side and a green light on the right side. [The Baiko] assembled two such LEDs on a small sliver of glass along with an ATtiny85 microcontroller.
Powered by a coin cell, they effectively create a abstract representation of a plane in the night sky, paired with a flashing strobe that meets the requirements of the contest. [The Baiko] isn’t exactly sure of the total power draw, but notes it must be low given the circuit has run for weeks on a 30 mAh coin cell.
It’s an amusing piece of PCB art, though from at least one angle, it does appear the red LED might be on the wrong side to meet FAA regulations. Speculate on that in the comments.
In any case, we’ve had a few flashers submitted to the competition thus far, and you’ve got until August 19 to get your own entry in!
<3
Looks good to me. – blinker on the tail.
looks correct to me. red left wing, green right wing, tail strobe.
Yes. The 360 beacon is aft of the nav lights on an aircraft.
More interesting to me is that the position of the lights comes from ships. You yield to the ship I. Your 12-3 o’clock position that is crossing your path. That means that at night if you see red you must stop and if you see green you can go. That is why our traffic lights use the same colors the same way.
Ships: Red to red, home to bed. (navigating a channel)
Planes: Red on red, you’ll be dead. (glide slope for PAPI lights)
Don’t mix these up. Especially if landing a plane.
I do like, but outer traces could have drawn the plane. v2?
It took me a few re-reads to realise it was not actually NOAA regulating electrical storms.
This is pretty cool!