Daft Punk Helmet
Project Summary
A close friend (and big Daft Punk fan) approached me for help repairing a Guy Manuel helmet he had sitting on a shelf for nearly 10 years. It was originally purchased online and arrived in shambles but the outer shell and some of the electronics were still salvagable.
The orignal helmet (shell and visor) and a few PCBs were untouched, but virtually every other component inside was custom designed and rebuilt using CAD, 3d printing, and my software and electronics knowledge.
After completing design & fabrication of the new parts and circuits, I mounted them inside. All parts were designed so they could be removed with a screwdriver for repair if ever needed. Custom animation sequences were coded on an Arduino Nano Every (housed in a custom enclosure) along with "mode" buttons to cycle through each.
Involvement & Achievements
- Measured existing shell to design well-fitting, custom parts in CAD then printed each on a Bambu X1C 3D printer.
- Designed a new front/center curved LED matrix, along with wiring and necessary code to address each LED independently.
- Unified the power delivery to a single USB cable that can leverage a power adapter (as a shelf display) or connect to a USB battery pack for wear and mobillity.
- A microphone and audio analyzer PCB were mounted inside custom enclosures and connected to the primary microcontroller to create voice-driven EQ animations and effects.
- Wrote several, custom coded animation sequences that were driven by an Arduino Nano Every.
- Essentially all internal design, fabrication, wiring/electronics and software was completed by me, from scratch.
