Tomorrow is the 1st Advent, and right on time I was able to finish a special version of an Advent calendar for the Christmas 2020:

I have put the design on GitHub, so if you are looking for a last minute project and have access to a laser cutter, you might still be able to build one too until Dec 1st.

Material needed:

• 5 sheets of plywood, 4 mm, A3 size
• wood glue
• Christmas mini LED lights
• material to fill the calendar boxes

The design has been created with Inkscape, my favorite and open source vector drawing tool.

The design is for 4 mm plywood, but can be easily customized and changed with other tools too (.svg file format).

The calendar features 24 different boxes, one for each day in December. Each box is able to hold a few small items:

The parts for the houses fit together without glue needed, but glue can help to make it more robust. The house can be easily removed from the bottom part if needed. The calendar boxes are all removable.

In the basement I installed the batteries and the wiring of the lights, as there was not enough space inside the house itself.

LEDs are powered by 3 AA batteries:

The lights can be dimmed and and turn off automatically after 6 hours.

In the base there is space for the battery, electronics and the wiring:

The lights can be dimmed or turned on/off using the round button near the left front door.

I’m very happy with the result: it looks great at day and even more at night. The advent boxes could be refilled or replaced for a different event next year. Why not an ‘Easter Calendar’ or a ‘Summer Calendar’ depending on the season of the year?

Happy adventing 🙂

Links

• Files on GitHub: https://github.com/ErichStyger/mcuoneclipse/tree/master/LaserCutter/Inkscape/AdventCalendar
• Inkscape: https://inkscape.org/
• LightBurn: https://lightburnsoftware.com/
• Lasercutter used: Upgrading a Laser Cutter with Cohesion3D Mini and LCD