The Design

I was envisioning a deep corridor, an infinite effect booknook. It should be designed to fit my bookshelf, so more or less 20 cm tall and about 17 cm deep.

I’m familiar with 3D CAD software as I had some practice in SolidWorks at the university. However, I’m now trying to switch on open source software, and it’s been quite a journey.

Currently relying on Blender and FreeCAD, and the learning curve for both has been quite steep! I have to admit it’s been fairly easy to do some quick designing but I easily end up getting frustrated trying to reach the complete vision I have in mind.

Everything is practice so I’ll get there someday.

Again with the booknook, here are a couple of images of the final model.

I’ve lost the initial hand sketches, but here is how it turned out in the end. I also added color to the model to create a visual of how it would look once painted.

The Tangible part

I printed the parts separately to get finer results with my 3D printer, which turned out quite good on the first try.

I used some old PLA I had lying around that I wanted to use for prototyping. And now we are getting to the fun part: painting it with acrylics and giving it some effects with a dry brush.

Although LEDs will shine through the slits, adding matching paint helps amplify the light effect.

Now I needed to get the electronics. I have kept it quite simple, it’s been a while since my last electronics project and I feel I need to do a refresher on the theory. Everything is slipping out of my brain.

So, it came down to a couple of LEDs, resistors, and batteries to power it.

Apologies for the quick photos, I need a proper setup. I hope that in future projects (there will be future projects, I have to believe it) I get to improve the planning and photography.

The Final Result

And we get to the grand finale. Once everything is glued and put together, to get the infinite corridor look we just need a mirror on the back and a two-way mirror.

I used a plastic mirror for the back and a plastic with a mirror film on the front to get this look easily.

And finally, here’s a quick video showcasing the booknook once in place.