LED Umbrella with Arduino

Step 2 Afterthoughts -- Forewarned is Forearmed

Umbrella
Don't use your best umbrella! Or even someone else's best umbrella. The umbrella is committed to the project and, while you could take the LED matrix out, you won't want to by the time you are finished.

Placement
Although the LEDs provide a personalizable experience under the umbrella, they are not particularly visible from outside/above the umbrella. Consider whether you want the LEDs on the outside of the umbrella. They would be far more visible and the installation would be a lot easier. You would have to poke holes in the fabric to feed the wires down into the Arduino. Style in this case trumps waterproofing.

LEDs
Pick a nice color before you put a lot of time into making this thing. LEDs are apparently cheaper on eBay than through catalogs, so explore your options.

Wire
Smaller gauge or multi-stranded wire is probably better than AWG xxx solid wire. I used solid wire and it makes folding up the umbrella almost impossible. Also, I wouldn't use red wire for the anode rings. I would have picked a darker color that is less visible.