This Raspberry Pi project creates zen-like patterns using kinetic sand

Have you seen those videos of those devices where a little marble draws patterns in sand, driven by a magnet? I’ve never owned one of those, but I can imagine myself staring at it for hours on end. There’s just something mesmerising about a small marble making visually pleasing patterns in the sand, as if it was a small insect performing some mysterious ritual.

If you want one for yourself, but the prices are a little too steep, I have some good news for you. It turns out that not only can you make them at home, but someone has already done it and documented the steps they took for everyone to follow at home.

The Dune Weaver Pro is a Raspberry Pi-powered delight

In a thread on the Raspberry Pi subreddit, user tuankid showed off the newest iteration of their project. It’s called the Dune Weaver Pro, and it combines a few key pieces of hardware to create mesmerising patterns in kinetic sand. It does this by moving a marble through the sand that’s controlled by a magnet underneath the table, and you can program it to do whatever patterns you please. You can check out a video of it at work below:

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this project would take a lot of components to create, but the truth is, the bill of materials doesn’t seem too bad at all. Here’s a rough list they gave in the comments of their Reddit thread:

DLC32 board x1

TMC2209 drivers x2

Nema 17 42-23 motors x2

6 inch lazy susan (round)

Raspberry pi (3B, 4, 5) or Zero 2W

IKEA VITTSJÖ table x1

16mm N52 magnet (or 15mm, whatever you can source. Preferably a ring magnet)

10mm magnet ball (or 14mm, search for magnet on discord and you’ll find some links)

If you want to make your own, head over to the project’s GitHub page for more information. It features a guide for constructing a small or large variant of the Dune Weaver Pro, plus all of the code you need to get started with your own project.

As it turns out, Raspberry Pis are pretty great at making cool conversational pieces around the home. Lately, we had the pleasure of checking out a

Raspberry Pi project that uses a 150-year-old trick
to make it look like it’s casting a hologram of a video. Someone else

built this cube of LEDs
that they can display things on. And we also ran a piece on the 8 amazing Raspberry Pi projects to amp up your home decor, so you’re really spoiled for choice.