Interactive String LED Floor Mandala at ...

Dave Hrynkiw
June 1, 2017

Because... of things... Solarbotics didn't do a booth or official presence at this year's Bay Area MakerFaire. We opted to do something fun this time, building a custom just-for-the-fair piece of sorta-interactive LED artwork. Following on the success of the quickie LED floor mandala resting area we did at the NYC MF, we turned it up to 11 for the Bay area, making a WiFi-enabled version of the same thing.

Here's the technical detail on what we did:

The project is based on a modified "Double Rainbow" controller, with the Ardweeny brains replaced by a ESP-12. We set up the three major axis as "always on", with six zones controlled by the controller for animations. We advertised the WiFi SSID point and the URL for people to login to select one of the 6 animations available.

Dan set us up a nice 10' layout cord to speed layout of the major axis:

  

The franken-Double-Rainbow merged with the ESP-12F.

Setup at the Faire grounds, with our co-founder & CFO, Cheryl. The darkroom (Expo hall..2?) has a very hard rubber floor, so installing them directly to the floor would have turned the LEDs to dust with all the foot traffic. It took us 2 hours and some negotiating to find a 12'x20' carpet at a local Home Depot to mount the piece.

Floor Mandala in full operation! We had zero complications with the piece, other than the WiFi point saturating and not allowing us to login ourselves. Nothing a quick reboot didn't fix.

Sunday, and the lights have just come up at the Maker Faire. Cheryl, Alan Yates, and Elizabeth (sales coordinator extraordinaire) and two other tired attendees are getting ready to wrap up.

Peel up the art and signage, and you get ...more art! Remember, this was brand new (end-of-roll) carpet. That's what several thousand dirty feet can do to a carpet over a long weekend.

Interesting thing about going from a static LED display (in NYC) to a dynamic display is people (especially children) were interacting with it as if their footsteps were making things happen. Huh. We didn't expect that. I suppose the most natural interaction with blinky lights is to turn them on and off physically (not via your cell phone). Lesson learned for next time!

MORE POSTS

March 20, 2015
Friday New Product: More Grove Yet Again

SeeedStudio continues to impress us with he Grove line of Arduino/Pi/microcontroller compatible plug-in modules. Here's a fresh batch for today's product announcements.

July 23, 2011
EZ-B Wall-E, Even More New Stuff

So last week we put the EZ-B Robot Controller Suite up for sale, and what appears up on Hack A Day not long after that? This impressive modified Wall-E that has a built-in camera, voice recognition, and object tracking. And what does it use to control the whole show? That's right, an EZ-B. This would […]

July 17, 2009
New addition to SB Krew, secret fun stuf...

Well, last week I told you that I'd have (and I quote) "something more exciting and substantial for you." So I'd like to take this opportunity (on behalf of the other fine folks at Solarbotics) to welcome the newest addition to the team, Tom! He'll be heading up purchasing and finding neat new toys to […]

April 24, 2009
PICAXE is dead! Long live PICAXE!

Well we hate to break it to you, but the PICAXE-40X1 has kicked the bucket. Shuffled off the mortal coil.  Wacked, given up the ghost, became living-challenged, croaked, sprouted wings, snuffed out. "IT'S NOT DEAD! JUST PINING FOR THE FJORDS!" Well, that's not the case. But is does (did?) have beautiful plumage. But that's okay […]

Solarbotics Ltd Logo
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!

Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.

cart