You walk in the library and want to read a book that contains both history and horror. A little romance is also welcomed. But there are so many books to choose from and ain't nobody got time for that! With this interactive bookcase, all you have to do is press the buttons you are interested in. The buttons stand for genre's and keywords. When a button is pressed, the books that contains that keyword light up. The more buttons you press, less books will give light. This way you filter out the books you are not interested in and you only have to check the books that are lighted up!

Here i will show you how i made mine so that you can make yours! :D

Step 1: Bookcase

First of all you will need a bookcase. You can make one yourself (like i did) or just buy one.

When you are making your bookcase yourself i recommend to make the backside of cardboard. This is because we are going to make holes in them later on and cardboard is easier than wood.

Also important to note: i added a bit of cardboard above the two shelfs. This is to hide the spotlights.

Step 2: Spotlights

Next up are the spotlights. This is what you will need:

Danone yoghurt cups
Scissors
Insolationtape
Tinfoil
8 LEDs (dont go with the normal ones like i did!! These will not be bright enough. Super Bright White are the ones you need.)
Needle
Glue

1. We are making 8 spotlights, so you have to eat 8 of those little danones (or give them to your little niece to eat).

2. Cut them in half, and glue the tinfoil from the inside. This is to make the light that comes from the LED brighter. Now put these two halfs in eachother.

3. Put insolationtape on the inside

4. Now grab your needle and make it hot with fire. Make two holes in your danone so that the LED can go through them. Be sure to make a little space between them but not too much.

5. The LED can go through the holes. After this put a little insolationtape on both of the LEDs’ legs. This is
prevent a short circuit.

Do this 8 times and your spotlights are done!

Step 3: Placing the Spotlights in Your Bookcase

We are going to place our spotlights in the bookcase. But first we have to to take care of the wiring.

You will need:

Looong wires of two different colours.
8x 220 ohm resistors
Ducktape
Soldering iron
Insolationtape
Something to make holes with

1. When you look at the legs of your LED, you will see that one is short and the other long. Short means that it’s - and long stands for +. I soldered my black wire to the short leg and my red wire to the long one.

2. After soldering the wires, you grab your 220 ohm resistor and solder it to the end of the black wire. Tip! Make hooks on the resistor and the wire so that they stay put (see picture).

3. When you are done with all 8 lights, cut a bit of ducktape and put it on your light rolled up (see picture). Place your lights wherever je want.

4. Now make holes in the back of your case for the wires to come out of them on the backside.

5. We are going back to soldering! You will need an extra black wire. This is going to serve as the wire that will go in the Arduino. Grab all of your black wires and the extra one and solder them together.

Step 4: Designing Your Case

Before we will do the wiring of the buttons, we are going to actually make them first. If you do this now you won’t have to measure it later on and it gives you a basis to work with. The buttons are going to be located at the side of the case.

In these pictures you can see how i made mine. I used a lasercutter for carving and cutting my work. Using a lasercutter takes a lot of time and a lot of test-runs to perfect. I used wood of 7 mm.

Step 5: Wires for the Buttons

Ok now we know where everything will be placed: now on to the real work!

Wires (3 different colours)
Rotary tool
9x 220 ohm resistors
Glue gun
9 of your Arduino buttons (8 genres + one resetbutton)

1. Decide where you want your buttons.

2. We are going to make slots to hide the wires. This is very easy with the rotary tool but a chisel works as well.

3. Solder the resistors to the Arduino buttons and place them where you want to have them. Dont glue them just yet! First we need to solder the wires.

4. Solder three wires: one for the GROUND, one for the 5V and one for the PIN. The GROUND-wire must be soldered to the resistor.

5. Grab your glue gun and glue all the wires together in their slot. Now you can glue the little buttons.

Step 6: Placing the Buttons

I want the buttons to have that bouncy effect when you press them. I did this with the use of foam and also by making a hole on the backside of the button.

Foam
Scissors
Glue gun

1. First of all cut a bit of foam and put it around the Arduino buttons.

2. Next we are going to make a hole that doesnt go through the wooden button. We do this so that the top of the Arduino button goes inside of the wooden button. This, together with the foam, creates the bouncy effect. (The picture shown with three holes, was only a test to see how deep the hole must be. I recommend you to do a test first, because when the hole is too deep, you can damage the frontside of your button. The button you are actually going to use will only have one hole)

3. Before glueing everything together, test if you made the hole on the right place. Or else your whole button won’t work. We do this by putting the wooden button on its place. When you press it in and feel that the Arduino button is being clicked, all is fine! When you don’t hear or feel anything, big chance is that you need to make another hole.

4. Now you can glue it all! First glue the foam on the wood, and then the rest.

Fix your wood with your design unto your bookcase with a few screws.