{"id":623,"date":"2019-08-03T11:35:53","date_gmt":"2019-08-03T10:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.igfasouza.com\/blog\/?p=623"},"modified":"2021-05-20T14:26:12","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T13:26:12","slug":"led-race-another-dublinmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.igfasouza.com\/blog\/led-race-another-dublinmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Led Race – Another DublinMaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hey you!<\/b><\/p>\n

Last week 20th July was the Dublin Maker<\/a> 2019.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s start with an explanation about what is Dublin Maker.<\/p>\n

Dublin Maker is a free to attend, community run event, which was held on Saturday, July 20th, 2019 in Merrion Square. Dublin Maker takes the form of a \u201cshow and tells\u201d experience where inventors\/makers sourced through an open call, to have an opportunity to showcase their creations in a carnival atmosphere. It is a family friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the maker movement. It\u2019s a place where people show what they are making and share what they are learning.<\/p>\n

If you have science interested kids, or you\u2019re a kid yourself, this is a great event with lots of interesting open people and things that at least some of them you\u2019ll probably not get the chance to see again.<\/p>\n

I have been attending the event for a long time now, and today I want to explain the project that I presented this year. The Open Led Race<\/a>. Back in March I was on holidays and I saw one tweet from Arduino about the project and I said to myself, it\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m going to show on Dublin Maker. <\/p>\n

My first concern was about using an arcade button, because the idea is to let a lot of kids to play, I was afraid that they would break the button fast and I need to replace fast as well because a lot of people came to see the project.
\nAfter few days looking at the instructions and the components I had the idea to change the arcade button to MakeyMakey and because of that I decided to create the idea using a Raspberry PI to simplify the idea. <\/p>\n

Apparent I\u2019m the first one to do it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The project is really simple. I\u2019m using the WS2813 led strip and using the API<\/a> that I found on the internet.<\/p>\n

Python library wrapping<\/a> for the rpi-ws281x library <\/p>\n

You can check my GitHub<\/a> to see the full code.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s basically a Python code that runs on the Raspberry Pi that controls the Led Strip and the MakeyMakey that I used to simulate one keyboard. Every click I move the led 3 positions forward.
\nThe makeymakey part is just one aluminium foil and play-doh.<\/p>\n

I used the GPIO 10 (pin 19) and 18 (pin 12) for LED_PIN and LED_DMA and GPIO 9 (pin 6) for Ground.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I created a simple version of the Led Race, but there are lots of space for improvement.<\/p>\n

I came with some ideas that one day I’ll implement;<\/p>\n