This year, I decided to make my pumpkin a little more exciting. I thought and thought about it, and then I came across LED Dance Room. I figured "I could do that", and the project was born.
There are two modules for this setup: The Controller, and The LED/Breakout Board.
The controller is simply an Arduino running software that allows a computer to control it over USB.
The breakout/LED board is a breadboard that has 12 ultra-bright leds connected to the digital pins on the Arduino over two 15 ft lengths of CAT5 cable. The three unused wires in the cable are used to connect the speakers inside the pumpkin to the stereo that is near the controller.
The pumpkin is controlled by a processing script running on a computer. This program detects the beats that the internal microphone in my laptop picks up. It then converts these to data that the arduino can read. The arduino recives these signals and flashes different leds to different sounds (bass is brighter, treble is darker).
Here is a video of it in action:
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step 1What you need...
You will need...For the controller-An arduino-Wire-a proto-shield(optional)For the LED/Breakout board-12 LEDs of various colours (the super-bright ones work best)-breadboa…
step 2Installing Libraries
You will need to customize your processing install a little bit. This is really simple and only takes a few minutes to do.You will need to install two libraries: minim and…
step 3Building the Controller
The controller is the simplest part of this project. All you need to do is attach your wires to the output pins on your arduino. Start by connecting wires to pins 2-13. T…
step 4The LED/Breakout board
This part is slightly harder, but still simple. You now need to make up the LED array. Start by placing all of your leds on the breadboard. Connect all of their grounds …
step 5Programming
Now you need to program the arduino. All you need to do is upload the "standard firmata". To get this, go to file, then examples, then "Firmata", the click "StandardFirma…
step 6More Programming...
Now you need to load up your processing code. I have attached it below. All you have to do is export it, then run it. That's all. You can tweak and change it to mess wi…
step 7Fire it up!!!
Put your system into a carved pumpkin. I chose to cave a drum kit into mine, but you can put anything on it. You will have to cut a hole into the back of your pumpkin for…
step 8Final Thoughts and Possible Improvements
This project turned out really well. The lights looked amazing and worked really well. If I were to improve this, I would build a better waterproof case for inside the pum…
Related Videos
http://www.instructables.com/id/Music-Synchronized-LED-Pumpkin/