A proposal to light the Armour Center fountain for the holiday season: programmable LED lighting along the chain perimeter, controllable by anyone from their phone. Materials are the only cost — design, fabrication, and installation are donated.
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The Fountain Jukebox — anyone can pick the lights
A small sign will stand at each of the fountain's four sidewalk entries. Anyone passing by can scan the code and, in a few taps on their own phone, change the fountain's lights — no app to install, nothing to sign up for. Like a jukebox, but the songs are light shows: a small piece of interactive public art the whole neighborhood shares.
- Scan the code on the sign with your phone's camera.
- Browse the on-screen library of light shows and pick one.
- Watch the fountain change within a few seconds — for everyone there.
- Line up your favorites: see what's already been picked and queue the next shows in turn, so everyone gets a moment.
Selections come from a curated set of tasteful, seasonal shows, and between visitors the fountain returns to its own gentle ambient display — so it always looks its best.
- LED run (chain)
- Park outlet & 12 V supplies · one per quadrant, center-fed
- 120 V feed · from the one existing outlet
- Control quadrant · Pi · F16v5 · radio
- Cat5e run · SRx receiver
Power
The site has one outdoor outlet, on the south-east side of the ring, and everything runs from it. A GFCI-protected 120 V feed follows the fence line around the perimeter to a small weatherproof box at the center of each quadrant, where that quadrant's 12 V supply sits. Each supply feeds outward in both directions, so the farthest pixel is only about half a quadrant away — brightness and color stay even end-to-end, with no separate power injection required. The whole display draws about 3.5 amps at its brightest and closer to two in normal use, well inside a single household circuit. The long perimeter distances are crossed only by data (Cat 5e) and mains power — never low-voltage DC — and where a cable crosses a sidewalk it runs beneath a cable ramp.
Communications & reliability
A small controller (Raspberry Pi) at one quadrant drives the show and links back to the residence over a point-to-point wireless bridge. Pixel data reaches the other three quadrants over Cat5e using isolated long-range differential receivers — robust over the full perimeter with no signal boosters and per-quadrant fault isolation. The receivers report their own current, voltage, and fuse status back to the controller, so the system's health can be monitored remotely. The pixels themselves use a redundant (dual) data line: if a single pixel ever fails, data routes around it so only that one dot goes dark rather than the rest of its run. And because each quadrant is electrically isolated, no fault can reach beyond its own quarter of the ring.
Fabrication & installation
Donated in full — design, assembly, installation, and seasonal removal. The figures below cover materials only.
Bill of materials (approximate, June 2026)
| Item | Qty | Unit | ~Unit | ~Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total materials (est.) | ||||
Proposed timeline (targeting the 2026 holiday season)
The schedule is driven by two things: approval, and weather. Field work is planned for late October, while it's still mild enough for safe, quality outdoor assembly — leaving a comfortable buffer before the lights go live for the holidays.
- Approval Sign-off & ordering. HOA approval, then materials are ordered. Nothing physical begins until this is in hand.
- Late summer On-site measurement. A short visit to measure the real chain spans and confirm exact pixel counts, so nothing is guessed in the field.
- Sept – early Oct Shop build. Pixels, wiring, and the four weatherproof enclosures are pre-assembled indoors — most of the work happens warm and off-site.
- Late October Installation & testing. Mounting to the chain, running signal between quadrants, powering up, and a careful test of every light.
-
Nov – Dec
Live for the season. A nightly schedule designed to
look its best while respecting the neighborhood:
- Lights on
- Just before dusk (already glowing as the sky darkens)
- Interactive
- From lights-on until 10:00 p.m. — anyone can pick shows from their phone
- Ambient
- 10:00 – 11:30 p.m. — its own gentle display, controls paused
- Lights off
- 11:30 p.m.
- January Seasonal removal. Everything comes down in labeled sections and is stored ready to re-hang — so each following year is a quick re-install, not a rebuild. Nothing is left at the fountain in the off-season.
Dates are targets; the plan is built to absorb a late approval or bad-weather week without risking the holiday season.