TinyRobot

Prop · 2021 · From the bench

The Veneer Display

A seven-segment display hidden behind a sheet of wood veneer. Turn it off and it's a nice piece of wood. Turn it on and numbers glow straight through the grain. It's invisible until it has something to say.

Placeholder illustration of a dome-headed TinyRobot bot. [Replace with a photo of the digits glowing through the wood.]
Built
2021
What it is
Prop
Status
Finished
Our role
Idea, electronics, build
Inside
a seven-segment LED display, solid wood veneer, [driver to confirm]

How it works

The trick is light that's bright enough to push through the veneer and nothing else in the way. No screen, no bezel, no glass. Just wood that happens to know things.

This is where one of our principles came from: make them wonder how it works. It was built years before that sentence was written. Four years later the same idea went into the grip tester, with its displays hidden under vinyl and smoked glass.

More work