Building Process

Materials

EVA Foam 

PVC Pipe 

Cement Glue

Gold and Red Spray Paint

Bread board

Arduino BLE Sense Rev 2

Software

Rhino 

Adobe Illustrator

Sketching

For the intial sketch, I first drew out the staff and decided on proportions for the staff. Referencing the anime, I made the staff 5 ft tall and the crescent topper was approximately 13 in. From there, I laid out where my electronics and wiring would be placed. For the final build, the arduino and breadboard are housed in the center red sphere and wires are ran through the tubes in the center to power the LED

Testing the Circuit

For the circuit, I began by testing it on a breadboard powered by the computer. For the circuit, I used a strip of 40 Neopixels and an Arduino BLE Sense Rev 2 which posseses an onboard accelerometer. After testing, I created a circuit which would program the Neopixels to turn on red once the arduino was powered on, then once the accelerometer sensed over 1g of force then that would turn the white LED on.

Building

The crescent: The crescent was made with laser cut EVA foam, then spray painted.  The center circle was made with a circle of EVA foam sandwiched between 2 rings.  The breadboard and battery pack was then glued into the center and attached to the base. The breadboard and battery pack was then glued into the center and attached to the base.

Attack spell design from the anime

The base and Red Orbs: The base of the staff was made with 5ft of PVC Pipe which was sanded to add texture then spray painted red. Additional accents were added with EVA foam which was spray painted gold. The red orbs were sande then lightly spray painted.

The projection and LED: In order for the projection to shoot out the top of the staff, I created a small tube that would house a white LED and an acrylic disc on top. Once the LED is turned it would create a faint projection that looks like a spell from the anime. For the laser cut disc, I etched the symbol for a spell from the anime onto an acyrlic disc

Reflection:

This project was extremely exciting as I was able to imagine a 2d magical staff into a real life prop. Transferring fiction can be difficult since the prop has to look as real as possible to the animation without actually being made of those materials. I also thourougly enjoyed exploring what elements I could add such as the glowing light and projection as magical as possible. Through this project, I honed my skills in fabrication methods such as laser cutting and wood shop work.

Next steps:

For future iterations, I would add several features to make the staff more “magical” such as audio and the ability to change out different acrlyic discs to show more “spells”. I would also test out different LEDs and etching methods to get a clearer projection.