MAKE contributor Dhananjay V. Gadre wrote in with this cool project:
I just completed a new project: a fire-free and fire-safe LED matchstick. To light this matchstick you strike it against a normal matchbox filled with neodymium magnets. The LED matchstick has an inductive sensor that detects the magnetic field as you strike the matchstick against the matchbox and it lights up a LED in a flickering fashion. The power to the matchstick is through a 3F/2.7V supercapacitor and a DC-DC converter. As the LED lights up, the supercapacitor discharges and eventually the matchstick splutters off just like a normal matchstick.
The matchstick is controlled by a Tiny13 microcontroller. Still need to put it in a perspex tube so that its easy to handle and is not damaged.
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