So for Bandits games, which are fun as hell, I am going to make letters for the “Penalty Chant” that have orange EL wire with a switch that allows them to be turned on at the appropriate time.  I have EL wire that is about 10 feet long so I need to play a little bit to determine the max size the letters can be.  I’m also looking for something to attach them to which is either going to be foam board or some kind of durable foam rubber (like packing material).  I also need to play with the inverter. I have a 3v inverter from sparkfun that I am going to play with. The web page says it will take 2.7v – 4.2v. So I am going to try it with 2 Alkaline AA batteries (3v) and 3 NiMH AA batteries (3.6v) and see how bright the wire is. I’m not worried about the lifetime or the wire (using higher voltage reduces the brightness more quickly) because the on-time will be so small. For the same reason battery life won’t be an issue. Getting this done in a week might be tricky because after I experiment to determine the best electronics, I need to order more parts. I can at least get them mounted and ready to go and test each separately and then when the other inverters and battery packs arrive I can just plug it in. I’ll call it a success if I can get to that point by next sunday.