LED Minecraft Beacon

This Instructable will show you how to make your very own LED Minecraft Beacon. I got the idea for making this when I saw the light-up Redstone block on ThinkGeek.

When I was in the “Design Phase” of this project, I wanted to do my best to make it to scale. I knew that one Minecraft block was around one meter and that the metric system is relatively easy to put to scale. Nevertheless, I used inches. I also knew that one Minecraft block is 16 pixels wide, tall, and thick (is a square after all). I decided 4 inches would be a good enough size, mostly because it can easily be divided into 16.

I started looking around my house for supplies. First, I looked for some see-through plastic for the outer shell. I thought I had a sheet of Plexiglas but I could not find it, so I figured I would use the clear plastic fronts of CD cases. I began searching for five of them so I could make all four sides and the top, and while I was searching, I found the plastic case that my GoPro Hero2 came in. I saw it and thought “Perfect! Now I don’t have to do as much work!” Now, I suppose you could use five squared of clear plastic but I don’t want to, so I won’t.


To complete this project you will need few supplies:
GoPro Case (the clear plastic cube and black plastic square that a GoPro comes in) Small LED light (white or blue or both) can be a bike light, a small flashlight, or you could put together your own light arrangement.
Cardboard Box
Cardboard cutout diagram (link bellow)
Black Construction Paper
"Beam" Papercraft printout (link bellow)
One sheet of standard printer paper

You will also need some tools:
Box Cutter
Glue Dots
Tape
Scissors
Ruler

Let us get started!
Remember, these steps aren’t RULES they are GUIDELINES.

Note: Powering Beacon will not require building a pyramid of Diamond, just so we are clear.

Step 1: Cutting the Cardboard

See the picture tbelow to see how to cut the cardboard. You will want to make 3 to 4 cardboard squares.
They have the hole in the middle so they can fit on the GoPro base, if you are not useing a GoPro base then you dont have to follow the template, you can juse cutout 3 to 4 3"x3" squares.

Since you already have your printer ready, you might as well printout the Papercraft template and Tape/Glue it together.
Note: Each Square of the Papercraft should be 2.5 inches.

Step 2: Assemble "Base"

Stack the 3-4 cardboard squares on top of each other and tape together. Then, cover with black construction paper so no cardboard is showing.
Finally, attach cardboard to base using glue, glue dots, tape, etc.
At this point, it should look like this...

Step 3: Attach Light and "Beam"

If your light has a way to attach to the cardboard you can do that, for example the light I'm using has an adhesive back so it can stick to walls or ceilings.
Once that is done, you can place the Papercraft "beam" on top of the light.
You might not want to secure it, you will need to be able to access it to turn it on and off.

Step 4: Turn It on and Top It Off!

The title of this step is pretty self-explanatory.

Turn on the light.
Then...
Put the cover on top. Again. you might not want to secure it because of the fact you will need to be able to remove it to access the light.

And you're done!!! Now you can enjoy your new LED Minecraft Beacon.