Aaron Gilstrap lights up New Eagle

By ERIC SEIVERLING

eseiverling@yourmvi.com

For anyone who needs some cheering up this holiday season, New Eagle resident Aaron Gilstrap will gladly invite them to his house.

Don’t worry, you can’t miss it as you drive down his street.

Gilstrap, a biomedical engineer for Washington Hospital, recently installed a Christmas LED light display on his home at 190 Morton St. The system is controlled by software on a computer inside his house. 

The display dances synchronously to music broadcast on 105.3 FM radio, and the brains of the system are six small computers, dubbed “raspberry pies,” that control the display from watertight housings along the outside.

The display features a 22-foot-tall tree, 600 feet of extension cords, four LED display panels, four LED candy canes, two round LED spinners and so many LED lights that Gilstrap wouldn’t estimate how many are in use. 

He said the display took a year to build from parts and equipment he purchased from Lowe’s, Home Depot and Amazon.

“I have a couple more props I’d like to finish,” said Gilstrap, who lives with his wife Renee and 16-year-old son Logan. “I’m sort of a techie.”

To read the rest of the story, please subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.