Music Reactive Light Boxes
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Developed as a final project for the How to Make Almost Anything class taught by Niel Gershenfeld at the MIT's Center for Bit's and Atoms in the Fall of 2009, these music reactive light boxes are constructed using 100% personal fabrication techniques employing no prefabricated parts. The diffusers are a cotton cloth based composite hardened using a Urathane plastic compound while the PCBs were designed, milled, stuffed and programmed (in Assembler) manually. A microphone recieves an audio signal and the microcontroller listens for "zero crossings" in the audio sinewave. When the zero is crossed the microcontroller drives an array of RGB LEDs in a pre programmed PWM. The PWM plays until the zero is crossed again at which point it randomizes. The boxes can be networked together such that each acts as its own RGB pixel. The effect is a hypnotic light show!
This project was created using CadSoft Eagle, Roland MDX-15, Python, cad.py, averdude, Assembler, ATMEL ATMEGA-88, sewing machine, cotton cloth, Smooth-On 310
Click here to see detailed instructions on how to make these boxes including all the engineering files.
Click here to see my other work in this class.
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