This Spinny Blinky Stick Is Like a Handheld PoV Display

Sometime in the late 1990s, we started seeing novelty PoV (persistence of vision) displays showing up in stores like Sharper Image. They seemed like magic, but the tech is actually pretty simple: just spin a row of LEDs while blinking those LEDs really quickly at the right time to trick human eyes into seeing a solid shape. The same principles let Corridor Crew’s Wren Weichman build an incredible LED staff perfect for live performances.

PoV displays didn’t become commonplace until the 1990s, because that was when LEDs got cheap enough and microcontrollers fast enough to make the devices practical on the consumer market. But the concept is very old and it really comes down to “moving the light fast enough makes it look solid.” A swinging fire poi achieves the same effect without anything electronic involved.

But reimagining the PoV display concept for handheld use came with two big...

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