Process Shots Of The Group Table Project.

Quick sworks of a potential group table. Tri, top, and side views. streetlightchanger 

Iteration 2: thick "pages" step base which could house electronics, lengthened bay to fit iPhone form factor. Plastic, on/off, and charging discussed as future directions.

Process shots of the group table project.

Prototyping a digital latch for the old light-cum-paper project. After I made a space heater out of NANDs I ended up using two inverters and some resistors and capacitors for debouncing a la the last schematic in "Circuits B" here: http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/TouchSwitch/TouchSwitch-1.html

After recycle-diving in the scili for some reams: the base for the smartphone opera house, iteration two.

Table Design sketches. Much of sketch credit here goes to M. Baxter.

Conclusion of the LED light project. I had concluded maybe before the last post that the auto wake up function from the iPhone would not be a feasible option without more electronics however I still wanted a charger in here to power the LEDs and provide a nice acoustic dock for dearest iPhoney-MciPhone. The build went along the lines of contact cementing the glass sheet to plywood, then epoxying the contacts to the underside of the glass. In retrospect I think I would opt to place a few globs of epoxy along the length of wire, rather than slathering all of it. I think a few globs might have looked cleaner. Next I took the plunge and opened up my iPhones cable, then soldered it back together but with the LED bug on the 5V line. Then is was just wrapping my precut Mylar sheets around my electronics and contact cementing those to the glass. I finished up with gluing in a small wooden support sanded to level the charger with my phone's 30 pin slot with a case on. Dark tests show desirable optical and bending effects similar to the paper models.

A few shots of the CNC doing its work on the plywood parts of the table.

Day one: LED and paper project. Phone opera house, projects sound and light. Collaborator: Brian Drake (I'll miss ya buddy)

Potential circuit for the on/off of the "smartphone opera house" lights. You could power the whole stand off of the 5V iPhone USB cable, taking a parallel path for the LEDs and the phone charger.

Dead center in the schematic is a relay that would control power to the LEDs. The relay could be pulled by some sort of signal from the iPhone's USB jack (the line coming from top left). I kind of hope that the iPhone sends some momentary Tx signal on the USB when it wakes up for an alarm but this is an assumption; its hard to find information on an Apple product. In any case, assuming some kind of transient signal could be pulled off of the iPhone the relay would be pulled closed and then self-latch, keeping the LEDs on. In order to manually turn the lights on and off, a double pole, double throw switch (ignore the SPDT label) could be used (which is shown as two separate switches, 1 and 2). To turn off the lights after the phone has turned them on you would turn the lights manually on, connecting 1 and disconnecting 2, then back to off, which would momentarily break the self-latch circuit.