Rainbow Alicorn & Ceiling Canopy Light
What started as a reward system got slightly out of hand.
3D PRINTING · ELECTRONICS · CAD · PARENTING SCOPE CREEP
2026-09-19
THE REQUEST
It started as bribery.
The brief was modest: a little something to make five completed chores feel suitably momentous. The kind of small magic that turns a sticker chart into an event.
My daughter was into alicorns at the time, which according to her was a unicorn with whings. With an alicorn, of course, came a rainbow, and stars seemed sensible. Then the question became whether a bedtime reward could become a whole room’s worth of weather.
“It's just a toy that lights up.”
The first and last time this was said.
The Original Plan
Before the project occupied the ceiling, it was a contained idea: a rainbow, a few little lights, and a reason to celebrate a week well done.
Prior to the start of the project, my daughter mentioned how magical she thought alicorns were. Around the same period of time, I saw a YouTube video about a house-points rewards system that was based on Harry Potter.
I thought the rewards system could work out, given how my 4-year-old daughter kept needing extra reminders to do her daily routine and chores.
The basic design was a 3D-printed rainbow with an alicorn jumping over it. To achieve the rewards point aspect, the idea was to have five stars embedded into the rainbow, with translucent boundary lines that get back-illuminated by LEDs.
To activate and accumulate the reward points, I, as the parent, would have a magic wand of my own, with an RFID tag embedded. My daughter on the other hand, will have a wand of her own, but with magnets embedded. When the time comes that I see fit to reward her a point:
I tap the rainbow to wake it up using a parent wand.
My daughter will then tap with her child's wand to receive 1 point, rewarded in the form of a lit-up star.
Process repeats until my daughter receives all five stars, the rainbow will play some cool animation, and I will let her make her choice of a treat.
All of which was achieved with Arduinos, LEDs, Hall sensors, RFID readers, generic resistors, blah blah blah.
Scope Change & Scope Creep
This entire project took about eight months to complete. As seen in the picture, we also have a wand that activates the rainbow & its lights, and a docking cloud for the wand. However, during that period of time, my daughter slowly grew into such a sweet girl, that I thought forcing a reward system into the household was a bit brutal.
One night, after my daughter and I finished our bedtime story, I asked her:
"If I made you a nightlight that is a rainbow with stars, and there would be an alicorn jumping over it, would you be able to fall asleep on your own?"
Her answer was definitive, and that was enough motivation for me to complete the project. Think about how much extra time I would have for myself if I didn't need to sing lullabies for at least 20 minutes every night.
The idea of putting the nightlight on the ceiling instead of her bedside table came about when the rainbow alicorn was nearly complete. My daughter, with her generic Amazon-purchased motion-activated nightlight, would nearly every night come knocking at our bedroom door, saying that she was scared of the dark, and refused to go back to her room.
A brief consultation with ChatGPT pointed to the possibility that parts of her room could remain very dark at night, even with the socket-type nightlight, and therefore resulting in fear.
To properly light up the room at night without needing perhaps five nightlights plugged into the socket? Put the lights on the ceiling, where the light wouldn't get blocked by the bed, toys, the alcove, etc.
However, the theme of this project is magic, which meant I couldn't just make it an IR remote-controlled light, could I?
Making It
Now, it's time that we talk engineering.
"The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down".
— Adam Savage
Let's write down our project requirements and put them under change control.
Requirements mentioned here are no longer applicable to the reward-system that I once envisioned making, but the magical nightlight.
Requirements
Device must be safe and suitable for a child's bedroom.
Enable my daughter to fall asleep by herself.
(Yes, totally tangable requirement.)
Provide useful nighttime illumination.
Make the interaction feel magical.
Device must be manufacturable with home-shop capabilities.
Mechanical Architecture
The goal was to make the project feel effortless to use while keeping the electronics protected, serviceable, and easy to assemble. Every mechanical feature exists to solve a specific problem.
The system is divided into three independent assemblies/modules:
Magic Wand — a removable, child-friendly trigger with embedded magnets.
Alicorn Rainbow — houses the Hall sensor, ESP32, and rainbow LEDs.
Cloud Canopy — contains the receiver ESP32, star LEDs, ambient light sensor, and power supply.
The Magic Wand serves as the trigger, the Alicorn Rainbow acts as the command center and wireless transmitter, and the Cloud Canopy to be installed to the ceiling receives the command and brings the ceiling to life.
Each module was designed to function independently before becoming part of the complete system. This allowed development and testing to progress incrementally while keeping bedtime magical throughout the project.
ESP-NOW
WIRELESS
ESP-NOW
WIRELESS
FIRST ARTICLE Inspection
Well, sorry sweetie, the footprint was limited by manufacturing capabilities.
… Of course I didn't actually say that.
My real answer was:
"Sorry sweetie. Should we make some stickers together for the cloud, to make it look prettier, and to hide some of those bolt holes?"
Project Overview
After eight months, the project is finally complete.
I could end this page with a checklist showing whether requirements were met.
But a few days after installing it, while my daughter and I were riding our bikes together, she turned to me and said,
"I love you Daddy because you make me lots of pretty things."
I think that says everything.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
3D PRINTING · ELECTRONICS · CAD · PARENTING SCOPE CREEP