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Light-up table adds interactivity to your next dinner party

An LED-infused dining room table responds to movement while you use it

Jennifer Lowell
Jenn Lowell spent her time at the University of Colorado building robots and other toys before earning her graduate degree in mechatronics and mechanical engineering. She is a self-proclaimed lover of anything that runs off of electricity and has moving parts or motors. Currently pulling double-duty as a high school science teacher and freelance blogger, she has free time seldom enough to deeply appreciate the modern technological conveniences that give her more of it. She is a long-time recreational blogger currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY.
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Jennifer Lowell
2 min read

The holidays are upon us, which means full bellies, festive colors, and brightly colored lights. Meet a dining room table whose brightly lit top would fit in perfectly with the rest of your twinkling home decorations.

OK, so it wasn't created for the holiday season. To the contrary, it was made by Windell Oskay, who jokes that he "built it because (they) needed a new dining table, and I guess (they're) just that kind of people." Oskay brought the table to the Maker Faire, and posted several pictures of its construction on his Flickr Web site. Since then, it has been featured in several blogs.

The table is constructed from 448 LEDs of various colors embedded into perforated board. The circuitry that drives the LEDs was designed in a way that causes them to light up and shut off as a response to ambient light above them while the family eats. After the electronics boards were made, Oskay set them into a stained birch and poplar table frame and covered them with a piece of recycled glass that he recovered from an old desk.

The festive and attractive design is also environmentally conscious: the table uses recycled materials like the glass top, and LEDs require so little power to run that the table doesn't require a ton of energy to function. It's definitely not a centerpiece for every family's dining room, but technophiles and children-at-heart can all agree that it's a cool invention. To see it in action, check out the video here.