Calming Fish Friend

This is a calming fish friend that has 2 light-up functions. When you hold one alligator clip, the lights undergo a sparkle animation that continues as long as you are holding the alligator clip. When you hold the other alligator clip, the lights undergo a rainbow animation and the tank emits bubble sounds. Feel free to sit and breathe with your fish friend for as long as you need!

MATERIALS

1. 1/8" Baltic Birch laser cut with the following dimensions:
2. 1x 12in x 7.5in panel
3. 2x 12in x 4.5in panels
4. 2x 4.5in x 7.5in panels
5. 1/8" Clear Acrylic laser cut with the following dimensions:
6. 1x 12in x 7.5in panel
7. 1x CircuitPlayground Bluefruit
8. 2x 16x16 NeoPixel LED Matrix
9. 1x 3-pin JST SM Plug (ideally one with ground, signal, and power color-coded, like these)
10. 3x tiny nut and bolt
11. 2x double-sided alligator clip test leads (long)
12. 1x USB-A to microUSB data cable
13. 1x USB-A power supply
14. 5V 5A power supply with barrel jack
15. Aquarium rocks -- as many as you need to cover the bottom of the box; these are an option

TOOLS / SOFTWARE

1. Laser-cutter
2. 3D printer
3. PETG Transparent 3D Printer Filament
4. Hot glue
5. Wire stripper
6. PyCharm, CircuitPython
7. adafruit animation library

3D print the fish on transparent PETG filament with the attached STL file.

Use the attached file to laser cut the fish tank. Let Wall 3 be the back of the fish tank, cut out of the baltic birch. Let Wall 1 be the front of the fish tank, cut out of the clear acrylic.

1. Place the LED matrices next to each other. Flip them over.
2. Connect the LED matrices together by attaching the 3-pin JST male connector of one matrix to the 3-pin JST female connector of the other matrix. See image #2: the very top wires on the left matrix are connect to the very bottom wires on the right matrix.
3. You may choose to attach packing tape to where the matrices connect to keep them tightly next to each other.

1. If your 3-pin JST SM connector does not have three loose wires attached to it like image #1 (from aliexpress listing), then you will need to cut and strip the wires, so that one end has 3 loose stripped wires and the other has a connector that can fit with an LED matrix's JST connector.
2. Loop the stripped wire ends through the following pads of the CPB:
3. Ground - White wire --> GND
4. Signal - Green wire --> A1
5. Power - Red wire --> VOUT
6. Secure each wire with a nut and bolt. See image #2 for what this should look like.
7. Connect the CPB to a matrix's corresponding JST connector. See image #3.
8. Connect the 2 alligator clip test leads to the CPB as follows:
9. Clip to A2
10. Clip to A3

1. With hot glue, attach the 3D printed fish to the center of the LED matrices.
2. After the fish is securely attached to the matrices, attach the matrices to the center of the back panel.
3. Connect the barrel jack of the power supply to one of the 5v/GND wires of the matrices as follows:
4. Ground - Black wire --> (-) terminal
5. Power - Red wire --> (+) terminal

1. Put the panels together, aside from the top panel. The box's top should be open.
2. Fill the bottom of the box with the aquarium rocks and anything else you want to add (I added some rainbow beads into the mix!)

Add the attached .audio file to a folder named "bubbles". Add this folder to your CIRCUITPY folder, as you will refer to it in your code. The audio will play through the CBP's built in speaker, but feel free to use an external speaker/amp if desired.

1. Attached is the code to run on the CPB. Make sure of the following:
2. You have a folder on CIRCUITPY named 'bubbles' that has the mp3 file you are using in the project.
3. You have all of the necessary libraries downloaded. Use CircUp to download libraries needed for this project.
4. Feel free to experiment and change colors and animations as you see fit!
5. To power the project, the CPB will be powered via USB cable and portable battery and the lights will be plugged into a power supply plugged to power.

When the code is working as intended, attach the top panel to the box. Make sure that the alligator clip test leads can stick out of the top of the panel so that they can be held by those interacting with the project.