LED Atom Model

This is my LED Manganese Atom Model!

Unfortunately, when I built the model, I did not document the steps that I I took to build it, honestly because I did not know what my steps would be, or how it would turn out at the end. But somehow it turned out great! I will try to describe the build process the best I can.

Supplies:
80 LED's of 3 different colors (protons, neutrons, electrons)
plenty of resistors to complete the LED arrays.
1 board of perfboard
wire
hot-glue
metal rod (for the stand)
2x4 wooden base
toggle switch
printable lables

Tools:
Soldering Iron
de-soldering braid
hot-glue gun
dremel
drill
wire cutters

Step 1 Choose your Atom

The first step is to choose what atom you want to model. The biggest factor for me in choosing an atom was the quantity of LED's that I wanted to use. Each element has an unique number of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Carbon has 6 protons, 6 electrons, and 6 neutrons. -> this gives a total of 18 LED's in a complete model. Simple, but also probably not too impressive. I wanted an element that had somewhere around 75 LED's to make an impressive model. Manganese has 25 protons, 30 neutrons, and 25 electrons. -> My atom model has a total of 80 LED's. So I chose Manganese.

fyi...[Manganese Uses: Manganese is an important alloying agent. Manganese colors glass an amethyst color and is the coloring agent in natural amethyst. Manganese is an important trace element in nutrition, although exposure to the element is toxic in higher quantities.]

Comments

[iminthebathroom]

I like it, one of goof friends is a chemist and she loves models like this.

[Scucci]

If you don't mind waiting a week, you can get the LEDs from the Chinese guys on eBay. That's where I get mine when I need a LOT of them. 100+ LEDs for a few bucks. There is a small failure rate on them... so I'd get a little battery to test them each as I was building this. But IME it's usually something along the lines of 2-3 out of 100 will be bad... still a good deal.

[littlepetry]

Intriguing. If I had a reason to force my mind to once again dwell inside the atom, I might just have to go all out and source china. :P

[buckminsterfullerene]

Lets go for fricken, Copernicium, (112) or something. That would be crazy hard, and then attach servos to a group of LEDs in the nucleus to pull them away, so it is as if it is decomposing!

[littlepetry]

You supply the parts and money, and I'm in!

[arhodes18]

haha i would have done hydrogen just because of the number of subatomic particles.

[kelseymh]

And there's the difference between someone who cares and ...

[arhodes18]

woa woa woa, lets not get carried away here, it was joke jeeze, lets not jump to the conclusion that im lazy

[kelseymh]

And my comment wasn't a joke? And I never actually said you were lazy; you did ;->

[littlepetry]

What's the fun in that? haha. I like challenges

[kelseymh]

This is a nice little project. You put a ton of work into it, and some decent research. Well done! Thanks for putting it up :-) If you still have it working, a picture of it turned on, either in the dark or enclosed in a box, would be really cool.

[littlepetry]

Thanks!

[kelseymh]

You're most welcome!

[Kiteman]

Any chance of a photo of it in the dark?

(And what grade did you get?)

[jeff-o]

Yep, this definitely needs a picture in the dark!

[littlepetry]

oops. Sorry Guys! forgot that one. Here it is. and I got a 100%. No one has put as much time in the project as I had ;)

[kelseymh]

Woot!

[jeff-o]

Shiny!

[littlepetry]

Thanks!