New Toby is part of our technical docs team and he is the best kind of new in that he has already made us a suite of lightsabers to play with. Oh, and they all have RP2040 inside.

We’re off to SiliCon in San José, California this summer and when Toby heard this, his mind immediately and correctly went to costume props. Specifically Star Wars props.

Tweaking Adafruit’s tutorial

Toby wanted to make the lightsabers using Raspberry Pi Pico but couldn’t make that work with the Adafruit code he used. Don’t worry though, he managed to stay on brand and stash an RP2040 in each one via an Adafruit Feather RP2040 board. And yes, he chose the pink one. (It also comes in black).

An Adafruit Prop-Maker FeatherWing is hiding under the pink board. Other than those two things, the LEDS and all other parts are the same as in the Adafruit project guide he followed.

The tubes are just ordered from a random plastics company online, and it’s ordinary sheets of baking paper inside them that make the light diffuse all the way up the tube. Crafty. Toby also 3D-printed a special Raspberry Pi-branded stand to display all the lightsabers.

Wearable tech guru Sophy Wong shows you how

Punished Props made this brilliant tutorial ages ago, and Toby’s antics have reminded me of it. In this epic (nearly hour-long!) video, Bill Doran and Sophy Wong replicate Anakin Skywalker, Luke, and Rey’s epic lightsabers.

This tutorial was made for the Punished Props Academy, who are also going to SiliCon this year. Full circle. We wonder what Punished Props’ Bill (aka @chinbeard) will be wearing?

Will we be seeing you at SiliCon this year? Say hi in the comments and tell us what costume you’re thinking of wearing. (And what costume you would wear if you had the time/sewing skills/materials).