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Toilet light wall
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LED screen made of empty toilet rolls
Why ?
The first idea was to reuse empty toilet rolls and make some fun with arduino and some LEDs. After gluing first block (4x3 LEDs connected to Arduino Nano), I've decided that it would be cool to control it right from the android. So I've added one BT adapter and created an android app. As the time went by, another empty toilet roll appeared. So I've built one block after another... After some time I've set my goal to have 4x4 blocks all together (192 LEDs). As the blocks were adding, the functionality of android app was also rising.
first 6 blocks
What it can do ?
Because it is quite straightforward from the video below, let's just briefly list the features from an android app:
draw (real-time)
toggle random LED (screen saver)
animation (includes also editor for key-frame animation)
font loop
incoming sound
simple game using accelerometer
front view
Was there something interesting ?
Aside from the gluing, soldering and programming, I've come across few interesting things:
I needed to create a protocol so the lights will be showing in real-time. I ended up with 2 bytes for each block. 12 bits for the light and the rest 4 bits as an identifier in the grid.
I've never used multiple bluetooth devices before. In this setup, my power resource was not sufficient enough so i needed to split the screen and use multiple bluetooth adapters.
view from the back
Result
To sum it up, I've made quite a large screen (76x60cm) with a horribly small resolution (16x12px) that can be controlled only via bluetooth with a custom protocol. The possible use-case might be as some sort of art exhibition object or as a domestic screen saver.
Computer vision exercises with preprocessing Before the next project I decided to do some computer vision exercises. Each example is based on a simple logic image preprocessing. No data structure or learning is required. Dice I got this idea while browsing the net. I was curious about how hard can it be to write such a script. I'll describe the algorithm in steps. movement detection : Comparing few frames with thresholds gives us the information, whether something is moving in the frame. Adding some small time frame after the movement stops gives us more precise information. remove background : Thresholding gray frame removes the background and gives us binary image with objects cropping the objects : Using contours to detect object and then separate them by cropping. detecting dots : Inverting the image we get objects that can be again simply detected using contours. filtering dots : If dice is visible also from the side therefore dots from that side can be recogn
Using proximity sensors for playing midi tones combined with LED visualization Description The aim of this project was to create a table sized device with multiple proximity sensors that can play midi tones. Each sensor had a few LEDs to show hand distance above the table. This table could be used by one or more persons at once. Hardware setup First I created a prototype from a cardboard to test sensors and some logic behind. Than I ordered a customized plottered sticker with a design which was painted with bare conductive paint. Afterwards I drilled some holes and connected the touchboard with 7 arduino Nanos. Each arduino was connected to 13 LEDs diodes. At the end I added two potentiometers. One for controlling volume and one for changing notes setup. Programming Programming consists of two parts. Master(touchboard) program that reads values from proximity sensors and sends messages to slaves(arduinos). Second program for slaves that reads messages from m
In this article we're going to describe how to recognize a skateboard trick using a gyroscope. This sensor is already present in most of the smartphones but in case you are not familiar with it, here is a description . Before we begin, small disclaimer. This project was originally as a part of hackathon that was used with Slido and the purpose was to confirm that it's possible to recognize a trick using a gyroscope. For the sake of simplicity of this project we're not considering skater's stance on a board and we're only trying to recognize 2 simple tricks. So, let's begin by splitting the problem into several smaller ones. We need to record the trick, store it, describe it, understand it, and then of course recognize it. Recording the trick Let's start with the trick recording. To have a precise data we need to have a device with a gyroscope that is attached directly to a skateboard. We need to place it on the bottom of the board, otherwise it might interfe
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