In this blog I walk through the process of realising my ‘pulse light’ starting with a video demonstrating its features in action, followed by a summary of the outcome and then captioned pictures and videos to illustrate the development from beginning to end. I was inspired by LED artworks (like this: link) and smart home devices. The start of the video shows a light-dependent resistor (LDR sensor) embedded into the enclosure.…
Read more »To get started with the project I first confirmed the Arduino could reliably control the LEDs. I’d successfully powered the LEDs before, but only with another controller and it looked broken because the LEDs had so many glitches. So I soldered all my RGB LEDs into one strip and uploaded a simple FastLED demo onto the Arduino: First time powering the strip - careful with the order (LEDs before Arduino) to avoid damaging the Arduino…
Read more »I plan to design and build a digital light for living spaces. The object’s exterior casing will feature addressable LEDs that effectively form a low-resolution screen, able to stimulate human observers with changing patterns. Responsivity, enabled by connecting an input to the system, will provide functionality too; it could sit on a bedside table as an alarm clock which illuminates in an increasingly annoying way until you wave your hand over a sensor to turn it off.…
Read more »Documentation of Arduino projects 12-14 for Physical Computing (IS53030B)… 12: Piezo input lock 13: Capacitive sensor 14: Potentiometer (serial) to Processing…
Read more »In my first proto-board trial, I decided to recreate the ‘Color Mixing Lamp’ Arduino Beginner Project using a different RGB LED (along with some other modifications). First I tested the circuit design on breadboard - showing the circuit, code and WS2812B RGB LED work together. Using Fritzing, an electronics prototyping application, helped design the setup by quickly visualising component layouts. After soldering each component and disconnecting rails (photo above). Everything working including USB power from a Raspberry Pi!…
Read more »Documentation (photos and videos) of the next lot of Arduino projects completed for Physical Computing (IS53030B)… 07: Piezo keyboard w/ resistor ladder 08: Tilt switch timer 09: Motor control w/ battery and transistor 10: Dynamic motor control w/ integrated circuit 11: Alphanumeric LCD screen…
Read more »Documentation (photos, videos and GIFs) of the first half of the Arduino projects for Physical Computing (IS53030B)… 00: Setting up 01: Powered LED w/ switch and resistor 02: Digital out to multiple LEDs 03: Temperature sensor 04: Photoresistors (light sensors) 05: Servo control w/ potentiometer and capacitor 06: Piezo element (sound)…
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