The trend in electronics for the last few decades has always been to make things smaller. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to turn the trend on its head and make something bigger. A lot bigger.
Robert Fizsimons brought a Giant Arduino Starter kit to commemorate his first Maker Faire as an exhibitor back in 2012. Everything about it was scaled upward in size by ten times. Since the LEDs themselves were portable, he started bringing them to other Faires and people always asked when they could buy one.
LED for scale
The massive LEDs even made an appearance at Maker Faire Rome in October of 2019. Hackaday’s Editor in Chief, Mike Szczys, even hinted at the idea that Robert could bring these novelty LEDs to his Tindie store.
The wait is finally over. Those who are interested can purchase their own Giant LED on Robert’s store, but don’t be surprised if they’re sold out. The first batch was 40% off as part of a Beta Testing Sale, and they were sold out before you could say “Light Emitting Diode.”
Beyond the novelty of a massive LED, the process by which they are made and still manage to function like a traditional LED is truly fascinating. You can read all about Robert’s journey to selling them on Tindie on the store page, and he also did a video series on YouTube showcasing how they were made, the first of which is below:
While they are still sold out as I write this, those who are interested can sign up for a waitlist on the store’s page to be notified when they’re back in stock.
