CrunchLabs – Hack Pack – HACKED!!

2025-12-16 | By Kevin Walseth

License: General Public License Microcontrollers Addressable LEDs LED Strips WS2812/SK6812 (NeoPixel) Arduino ESP32 XIAO

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What do you do when you get one of the amazing Crunchlabs Hackpacks? Well… you assemble it, admire it, use it, then you hack it. I got my hands on HackPack #004, the Sand Garden. The sand garden is a round garden filled with a thin layer of very fine sand. But the cool part is that it has a heavy steel ball that moves around to create shapes. It moves around using two motors to create a polar gantry system, having one circular arm and one linear arm to move the marble in any direction. The polar gantry system can be programmed to create shapes, text, and images into the sand. Or you can use the joystick to drive it yourself and bring out your artistic side.

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As I pieced everything together, I found the picture-only guide to be incredibly helpful, providing clarity and making the assembly process very smooth! But I had an issue. It is dark in my workshop, and it felt like it needed more light, because what doesn’t need more LEDs? So, I jumped on the DigiKey website and ordered a short addressable LED strip and a Seeed Xiao ESP32 board to add some unique and addressable lighting to it.

Starting with the Xiao board, I soldered the addressable LED strip wires directly to the board:

Ground to Ground
Power to vUSB, which is taking the power from the USB input
Data to pin D10

Using double-sided tape, adhere the strip of LED around the inside rim of the sand garden. Now it’s time to get the addressable LEDs to light the garden design, and I will be using WLED for this.

WLED is an open-source software that allows you to control addressable LED strips (like WS2812B, APA102, etc.) using a web interface, offering a wide range of customizable lighting effects and integration with smart home systems. It works with most ESP32 development boards, which is why I decided to use the SEEED Xiao board. It is small yet powerful and has built-in Wi-Fi using the ESP32. Once programmed, the Xiao will create its own Wi-Fi network that you can connect to with a computer, phone, or tablet to control the lighting of the sand garden.

To begin, ensure you have a USB data cable connected to your computer, Google Chrome installed, and your SEEED Xiao board ready. Navigate to https://install.wled.me/ on Google Chrome. With the board connected to your computer, click on INSTALL.

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You will then be asked to select a serial port. In my case, it is the third option. Then click Connect.

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Click Install WLED

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Confirm Installation by clicking Install again.

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Success!! It was really that easy to install this amazing software. Once the installation is complete, click NEXT, but skip the subsequent steps presented by the installer. We can then move on from the computer.

On your phone, tablet, or computer, you will need to connect to the Wi-Fi network that the SEEED Xiao is broadcasting.

The network will be WLED-AP

Password: wled1234

Once connected, you will see the user interface pop up automatically.

Click “To the Controls”

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Then Click Config

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In the LED preferences, we will specify the data pin used and the total number of LEDs in the strip.

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When you scroll down, make sure to set the length to 30. Additionally, you'll notice that the data pin is currently set to 2; this should be changed to 10, which corresponds to the I/O pin we used on the SEEED Xiao board.

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Be sure to click save when done, or you will have to redo this portion. You should see your LED strip light up (usually orange).

Now we can go to the color and effect settings and have some fun! For my sand garden, I prefer the breath effect with the cloud color palette, but this is where you can get creative.

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I also like to add a preset right away, so every time it powers on, it will have the animation I like. If you click Presets, then you can save your current configuration to the default. If you notice the apply at boot is already checked. This will activate the designated preset as soon as the device powers up!

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Congratulations! You have successfully added custom lighting animations to your sand garden. Now it’s time to get creative and explore different colors and animations you can design. If you discover multiple patterns that you like, you can even create a playlist of your favorite presets to play automatically!