We’ve been working on developing a PaxSpace Christmas ornament this year. A bunch of Christmas ball-shaped PCBs have been designed and are on order from SeeedStudio.com. The plan is that once the finished boards arrive, we will hold several workshops at PaxSpace to reflow solder the surface mount components, hand solder the through-hole LEDs and any other peripherals that you might want (such as a speaker, microphone, sensors, more LEDs, etc.), and to program the microcontroller on the board to blink the lights and control whatever you attached to it.
We’re planning to keep the cost of the workshop low, probably about $10 for PaxSpace members, and maybe a bit more for non-members. This should be a good activity for people of any skill level. You don’t need to be an electronics or software expert and can just do the parts of the build that you choose. If you are an expert it will be a good challenge to hack the ornament do something cool.
The ornament will have a PSoC 4 microcontroller, 3 RGB LEDs, space for a bunch of extra LEDs, and some pin headers to attach other random peripherals. There is space on the board to attach batteries, and a hole at the top to hang it from a Christmas tree.
Keep an eye out for updates on the ornament build workshops!