Make Your Own LED Goggles Inspired by Watchmen’s Sister Night

HBO’s Watchmen series may only have eight episodes on the books, but it has already received widespread critical acclaim. Like every other iteration of franchise, this one has pretty substantial cast of characters. But Angela Abar, AKA “Sister Night,” is arguably the center of the story. She works as a detective for an alternate reality Tulsa, Oklahoma, and wears a nun’s habit and a balaclava. Her character inspired these NeoPixel LED costume goggles, and Adafruit has a guide on how you can build your own.

These goggles aren’t specific to Sister Night herself in the Watchmen universe, but they do look cool and can be easily adapted to fit a lot of different costumes. They have a ring of LEDs that surround each of the goggle’s lenses, and a small rotary encoder knob on the side of the goggles can be used to change the color of the LEDs and their effects patterns. An elastic strap makes the goggles comfortable to wear for extended periods of times. Everything, including the battery, is built right into the goggles, so you don’t worry about tucking away an additional electronics box somewhere on your person.

To make your own goggles, you’ll need an Adafruit Trinket M0 board, a LiPo backpack, a pair of 16-LED NeoPixel rings, a rotary encoder, a slide switch, a 400mAh LiPo battery, and costume goggles that Adafruit helpfully stocks. The Adafruit Trinket M0 runs CircuitPython, so it’s easy to upload the provided code to the board. You then need to connect up the wires for each of the components. You will need to 3D printthe parts to mount the components to your goggles, and that might be a little tricky. Some parts will require supports, and a few of them need to be printed in flexible TPU filament. Once all of your parts are ready, assembly should be quick and easy. Now you have a pair of awesome LED goggles that you can integrate with your next costume!