Zapier Meets a Rasperry Pi: Build an Illuminated LED Logo

During a cold Minnesota winter, the author embarked on a project to create an illuminated Zapier logo controlled via the internet, combining their love for LEDs, microprocessors, and computers. After purchasing parts during a Black Friday sale, the author chose a Raspberry Pi for its internet connectivity and the flexible Dotstar LED strips for their ability to handle fluctuating data rates. The construction involved using cardboard and PVC pipes, with challenges in soldering and voltage adjustments. Once assembled, a NodeJS program on the Raspberry Pi managed the LED display through Zapier's Storage Service, allowing remote control via HTTP requests. A ReactJS simulator aided the coding process when away from the display, and a custom form on Formstack enabled users to select show styles and colors, which were then converted to JSON for the display. The project was a hit at a Zapier team retreat and served as a testament to the ease of connecting projects to the cloud using services like Zapier, encouraging others to explore similar cloud-connected endeavors.