Build Ball
Portable, glowing ball that gives on-call engineers a heads up when something breaks.
Features
- 24 hour battery life, charges with micro USB
- Lightweight, weighs ~200 grams
Image 1 of 3 — Shots of the build ball around Cadre HQ, New York, NY.
Parts List
- Particle Photon microcontroller
- Flexible RGB LED strip
- 100mm clear plastic ball; sanded down and sprayed with a matte finish for maximum light diffusion
Firmware
- Written in C++
- On bootup: device establishes a connection to local wifi and enters main loop
- Loop logic pings Jenkins build system and updates LED lights accordingly
Light sequences
Light sequences were programmed using the DAC (digital to analog converter) to drive the color-changing LEDs.
| mode | pattern | color |
|---|---|---|
| nominal | slowly pulsing sine wave | green |
| error | sharp pulsing saw wave | red |
| low battery | periodic double blip | red |
| acquiring wifi | even flashing square wave | blue |