Blinking bats

A second slice of LED-based Halloween goodness.

Blinking bats from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

These bats will be part of my attire for later today, but they’re really quite pleasing just by themselves!

A really simple build using an Arduino-based Real Bare Bones Board, some cardboard, some insulation tape some wire and 14 LEDs.

Here’s the code:

/*
blinking bats
nikki pugh 30th October, 2010
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons
Powers LED eyes for a colony of bats, blinking them in a random sequence at random intervals
http://npugh.co.uk/blog/blinking_bats/

LED pairs with 330ohm resistors in series, connected between the output pins and ground.
*/

int colonySize = 7; // How many bats do you have?

//control pins for each bat

int bat1 = 2; // bat1
int bat2 = 3; // bat 2
int bat3 = 4; // bat 3
int bat4 = 5; // bat 4
int bat5 = 6; // bat 5
int bat6 = 7; // bat 6
int bat7 = 8; // bat 7
int bat8 = 9; // bat 8
int bat9 = 10; // bat 9
int bat10 = 11; // bat 10
int bat11 = 12; // bat 11

int gap = 3; // gap before selecting next bat to blink
int colony[] = {bat1, bat2, bat3, bat4, bat5, bat6, bat7, bat8, bat9, bat10, bat11}; // Put bat IDs into an array
int batSelect = 1; // your bat selection variable - used for selecting a bat ID from the above array
int blinker = bat1; // the bat selected to blink
int i = 0; // counter for start-up blinks

void setup() {

randomSeed (analogRead (0)); //read from the (unused) analogue pin to get a value to seed the "pseudo-random number generator"

pinMode(bat1, OUTPUT); // set pins to be outputs
pinMode(bat2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat3, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat4, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat5, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat6, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat7, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat8, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat9, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat10, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bat11, OUTPUT);

}

void loop() {

for (i = 0; i< 3; i ++) { //blink all bats' eyes at start-up digitalWrite(bat1, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat2, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat3, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat4, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat5, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat6, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat7, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat8, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat9, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat10, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat11, HIGH); delay (200); digitalWrite(bat1, LOW); digitalWrite(bat2, LOW); digitalWrite(bat3, LOW); digitalWrite(bat4, LOW); digitalWrite(bat5, LOW); digitalWrite(bat6, LOW); digitalWrite(bat7, LOW); digitalWrite(bat8, LOW); digitalWrite(bat9, LOW); digitalWrite(bat10, LOW); digitalWrite(bat11, LOW); delay (200); } digitalWrite(bat1, HIGH); //all eyes back on again digitalWrite(bat2, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat3, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat4, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat5, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat6, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat7, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat8, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat9, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat10, HIGH); digitalWrite(bat11, HIGH); while (true){ // infinite loop gap = random(1, 5); //wait some seconds before selecting next bat delay(gap*1000); batSelect = random (0, colonySize-1); //select a bat at random blinker = colony[batSelect]; digitalWrite(blinker, LOW); //blink delay(200); digitalWrite(blinker, HIGH); } }