Outdoor Lighting Stakes

Week 1

This final project will create a set of locally-networked outdoor lighting stakes.

The Problem

During the summers, my family spends time in Canada at the family cottage on the shore of Lake Huron. The site is off-grid. It would be nice to have lighting along the beach (about 225ft, in red) or along the driveway (about 150ft) whenever someone walks there at night.

Proposed Solution

The proposed final project is to design and make sets of outdoor lighting stakes for these areas.

Desired features at each iteration would include:

• Spiral 1 - prototype with light, stake design, must be weatherproof
• Spiral 2 - add motion detection to turn on stake, timer to turn off
• Spiral 3 - add networking so that when one stake in a group is triggered, all the stakes in that group are turned on
• Spiral 4 - make a second set of stakes and implement behaviors to support multiple sets
• Spiral 5 - add solar power (stretch goal)

Some questions to be answered by further research:

• what type of power source? how long will it last? is it user-replaceable?
• what type of motion detection works best?
• how much area can a stake light up? how many stakes are needed to provide coverage for the area?
• how far away can the stakes be placed and still be in a lighting group?
• can a stake be in more than one lighting group?
• will the lighting groups be user configurable on the stakes or via an app or some other method?
• what kind and size of solar panel to get, battery compatibility, is it cost-effective?