An experimental art piece, which you could call a lamp

Supplies

- WS2811 LED string

- Arduino uno

- Material scraps

- 38cm by 61cm black mdf

- Drill (12mm)

Step 1: Facade

In an Adobe Illustrator file, create numerous rectangular shapes of different sizes and dimensions
Export this file as a dxf file
Gather a bunch of different materials, I stuck to black acrylic, white acrylic, wood and clear acrylic
Import the dxf file to the lasercutter program
Grab one of the materials, measure it and create a rectangle of those exact dimensions. From the imported file use a couple of shapes to fill up the rectangle
Delete the other imported shapes
Change the settings of the laser cutter to match the material you have
Cut! Repeat steps 4-7 until you have a lot of rectangular shapes

In an Adobe Illustrator file, create a flat lay of a box, adding little “teeth”, which have the same height as the material thickness is, on each side that can interlock with the connecting side.
Export this file as a dxf file. Import it in the lasercut program. Change the settings of the laser cutter to match the material you have and cut.
Glue the box together

Using a larger piece of material as a backing, I used black mdf which was roughly 60 by 38, to create a layout for the shapes, working in multiple layers, at least two. Take a picture of the layout
Glue the pieces that directly touch the backing on the backing
Mark a place where the box will go
Using the picture of the layout as a guide, drill 30-40 (for a string of 50) holes in the backing that will be covered by the layers that will go on top. Do not drill in the spot of the box
Glue the rest of the pieces, like the reference picture taken, onto the backing

Write a program to control the lights
Upload the program onto the Arduino
Connect the Arduino and LEDs and test the program out with a multimeter, see circuit diagram
If it works, solder the circuit as such
Add the lights to the drilled holes
Add the circuit and Arduino into the box and glue to box onto the backing