As a way to celebrate valentines in a unique way I decided to create an led animation that would appear on a heart contour in the form of a pulse, just like a hearbeat
There were a few design ideas that I went back and forth on as I came up with this design. It originally came from my plan of using an pre-made matrix, which I would have to program to display a heart and potentially even some scrolling text. I ended up putting this idea aside because I decided I wanted to focus on soldering and circuitry more for this project
After deciding that I would use LEDs instead of the matrix, I had the option of placing it on a pcb or to freehand the wire structure and connect the elements to it freehand. I ultimately went with the second option, as it helped me line up the LEDs to create a heart shape that I thought was more cute. due to the line-like structure of the LEDs it was harder to display them as a pixel heart on the pcb, which is more closely oriented to a square grid structure. Furthermore, the freehand circuit had more potential to look elegant, while also providing practice in not only the electronic part of the circuit, but it’s final aesthetic display as well.
These decisions really paid off, as I think it turned out really cute
