Sometimes when you’re at a music festival, it’s very hard to find your friends among the huge crowds. To help with this, attendees make totems: easily recognizable decorations mounted on poles which can be lifted up. My friends and I went to a multi-day one, so I wanted to create a very lightweight, easy to see totem, with nice-to-have attributes of alternate configurations, and hands-free usage.
I was very happy with the totem I ended up making, as it successfully met all my requirements :D. Plus, it was a very fast and easy build for me because I leveraged a lot of work I completed for other projects (see: Infinity Table).
My biggest insight was the reporposing of a Swiffer mop. This was ideal because it was strong, lightweight, collapsible, and it fit into my backpack. As an added bonus, the mop handle had holes and fastening features I could use to attach custom parts to.
A 3D printed a head assembly held a thin plastic plate to which a mini Arduino, LED strip, microphone, and physical control switch was mounted. I designed and laser cut/etched different inserts to match our costume themes on different days. To power the lights, a USB power cable was passed through the pole and connected to a USB battery mounted at the bottom.
