The Game of Life Coffee Table
About a year ago, we were smashing up a TV with Mammoth ( video ) and I fell in love with the look of the broken LCD, and decided to make it into a table-top. Despite veering wildly offcourse throughout this build – and using almost none of the original parts – that carnage set this project underway. First step was to CNC the base, an array of hexagons to serve as cells beneath the surface. You might think the first step would be to figure out what the end product would look like… but nah. I knew I wanted some multicolored lighting, and hexagons make a cool pattern, might as well start. Plus, it was a fun excuse to play with the CNC. Then I painted this array, and added WS2811 LED modules ( link , but you can find them cheaper elsewhere – search for “36mm ws2811”) to each cell: After that, it was time to program. This was definitely the most fun portion of the project. I started with Conway’s Game of Life – but Conway’s Game of Life is only played on a square grid, and I chose to use hexagons. Additionally, CGOL uses binary states – a cell is either on or off. Purely becau