Working on a project to potentially building a piece of art to put up in my room next year. The idea is this one: with the help of a friend who is better at hardware than myself, some ICs, my Arduino, and lots of patience and soldering, I want to build a 30 inch by 30 inch board with 100 discrete 3 inch by 3 inch “pixels” which are lit by a single RGB LED, that would look something like this, if the LEDs were set to display red, green, blue, repeating:

Each pixel diffuses the light from the LED so that it appears that the whole pixel is lit.

Each pixel diffuses the light from the LED so that it appears that the whole pixel is lit.

Since each LED can display any mix of red, green, and blue, any color is possible within each pixel, so designs can be displayed. It will maintain a USB connection to the computer (although extra power will probably be needed as the Arduino/USB won’t supply enough for 100 bright LEDs) so the computer can run more complex algorithms than the ICs could normally handle, and maybe even be able to display simple visualizations that follow music, fades and sweeps, and any color that I desire to set a certain mood to my room.

Other ideas include Conway’s Game of Life. The board could be mounted on a piece of foam board or plywood, with the elctronics hidden beneath, and the LEDs shining through either translucent acrylic or some sort of cloth, most likely.

Anyway.. mostly I have to keep it cost effective. Ordering LEDs from eBay, I can get 100 RGB LEDs for about $35, which beats DigiKey’s $150-ish for 100, but I still have to find integrated circuits and learn how to do it. Wish me luck :)

(Any suggestions are more than welcome)