Interactive coding with leds

November, 2018

Description

This project has been created to bring some lights to Erreur404 events.
The main idea of the project is to make LEDs react to the environment, and particularly the sound, to create a special atmosphere during the show. Currently it focuses on sound-light interaction, but we could imagine different kinds, where people in the event could participate to the light show.

Technical solution 1

The first solution uses a NodeMCU board with the ESP8266. An additional board have been made to retrieve data from different kind of sensors. Here is the architecture:

With all these informations, the esp will animate the leds strings depending on the input datas, which will give the interaction. The main idea of all those datas is to create all possible interaction between people, atmosphere, in the moment, to live the show "in the moment".

Technical solution 2

This solution uses the Artnet protocol. An application is coded with TouchDesigner, and it sends leds command to a BC-216 controller via an Artnet network.
This second solution is much more stable and allows to make better LED show.
Here is the architecture:

Making the LEDs bars

To release the LEDs bars, I have bought different material, here is the list:

• Led strip aluminium profile
• Alimentation (calculate for 20m of leds)
• Leds strip
• Specific connector, to link the different strips

All the led strings will be fixed on a Pendrillon with Velcro fixing. The big advantage of this is that I can re-arrange the led structure. If one day, I want to put them in horizontal way, I can. And the day after I want a vertical organization, no problem.

Videos

Simple test with 5m of leds. For the Erreur404 project, 20m are planned.

Video during a show in Paris: