Mystic Merkaba light sculpture (2019)

“Mystic Merkaba” is a light sculpture inspired by sacred geometry. Sound-reactive, 3D-printed, with 1,080 addressable LEDs. I originally built this in April-May 2019 as a group totem for EDC 2019, then refined it and brought it to camping trips, parties, and Burning Man 2019.

Mystic Merkaba

Hardware

• 1,080 individually addressable LEDs in 36 acrylic tube segments
• 16 3D printed connectors + electronics box + battery box
• Aluminum pole extendable to 10ft (max totem height)
• Can be held as a totem, or stand alone with collapsible carbon fiber legs in the field. Attaches to optional base for more stability.
• Disassembles to fit in carry-on size suitcase for air travel

Electronics

• Raspberry Pi 4 + Teensy 3 + OctoWS2811 driver
• Custom 211 Watt-hour Li-Ion battery pack (6s2p removable 21700 cells to enable TSA travel)

Software

• Custom Python+NumPy rendering engine, and Teensy firmware for streaming pixel data
• All effects are parametric and can be randomized.
• Wi-Fi connectivity + Web UI for interactive adjustment of parameters
• Modes include:
  • Sound reactive effects with frequency bands
  • Beat synchronous (BPM-based) effects
  • Color modes: full RGB effects, and grayscale mapped to color palettes
  • Addressing modes: polyhedra parts (large/small tetrahedra + center octahedron), linear segments, volumetric (xyz), spherical projection
  • Compositing modes for layering multiple effects (base colors + mask)
  • Playlists for pre-selected effects, or full randomization