This New Year’s Eve, the downtown association invites the public to celebrate in downtown Kokomo with music, lights, fireworks and a brand new lighted ball.
This year, the TechnoKats Robotics team will unveil a new ball the team has worked on since 2016. Support from Duke Energy makes this ball drop and celebration possible. Duke Energy will also have a door-sized light switch to turn to the ball on.
The annual event will be 10:30 p.m. to midnight and will feature a ball drop and fireworks by RKM Fireworks Company.
Guests are invited to arrive early, as some downtown establishments will be open to provide food, beverages and entertainment. The public celebration officially begins at 10:30 p.m. with a music, light and stage show by Extreme Sounds Mobile DJ Services. Kokomo Coffee Company will also have drinks available for purchase.
Mayor-elect Tyler Moore will greet the community and pull the lever that starts the ball on its descent. All of the evening’s activities will be centered at the corner of Main and Sycamore streets. The fireworks will be set off from the courthouse roof.
“This is a great event to celebrate all the great things we’ve accomplished over the last year,” said Susan Alexander, manager of the Greater Kokomo Downtown Association. “As a community, together we are celebrating a great year and looking forward to the new one.”
TechnoKats team mentor Mark Koors first conceived and designed the new ball in 2006, but the necessary technology did not yet exist. Ten years later, in 2016, the technology had caught up to Koors’ vision, and the team began work on this project. The new ball is made up of 320 individual 3-D printed triangles that fit together to create a hexadecane. LEDs are added to each triangle and all of the wires are soldered before the triangles are assembled.
“I think this project turned out to be much bigger than any of us anticipated when we began it three years ago,” said TechnoKats head coach, Joy Dewing, “but we’re proud of it and can’t wait to share it with the community.”
In total, the ball has over 19,000 soldered joints and 9,408 LEDs. According to team software mentor, Alan Anderson, each LED can be independently controlled and set to one of over 16 million colors. In addition to colored patterns, the software will allow the team to program the ball to display graphics.
“It’s impossible to accurately determine the number of hours spent building the new ball,” said Dewing. “This project has been the combined work of not just current team members, but also team alumni.”
The event is free and open to the public.
