By Khoi Tran (Reporter) 

As part of CSVPA Program at CATS I recently invented a smart sleep light which I presented at the academy meeting on February 26th.  At this meeting all the members of the program presented their projects which included music, art, fashion, architectural design, software programs and more. My special interest is engineering which I applied to my project. The sleep light was fun to develop and build and offers an economical way to provide a source of comfort to those who sleep better with a light on.

My sleep light runs on an ATtiny 85 chip, programmed using Arduino software, that controls a LED ring with 24 RGB LEDs. The case that houses all of the electronics was printed using my inexpensive 3D printer. The sleep light LEDs can be changed to green, blue, yellow, pink, or white, which are the colors that help one to fall asleep faster. The light saves cost and energy since the small LEDs use much less electricity than a household light bulb which makes the device environmentally friendly.

It took me about two weeks to complete this project. The new chip (ATtiny 85) makes it light and portable. Although, I encountered several setbacks such as burning a brand-new chip and soldering the components using the wrong diagram, ultimately the sleep light came together and works well. I enjoy being part of the CSVPA program because it gives me the opportunity to pursue my interest in engineering and to develop solutions like this to real world problems.