PacGhost
Last (Halloween) weekend required me to have an illuminated bike for an overnight cycle ride ‘twixt York and Whitby…
Last (Halloween) weekend required me to have an illuminated bike for an overnight cycle ride ‘twixt York and Whitby…
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); } }
Last night, after working on an LED-based Halloween costume prop, it occurred to me that the Spooky Bend from the Circuit Bending 101 workshops I’m doing in November [Nottingham, Birmingham] might be kind of cool in the dark.
It is!
The single red LED nicely up-lights your hands as you do your stuff.
It turns out it’s quite bright too, adding another layer of distress to this photo and video:
Happy Halloween from nikkipugh on Vimeo.
There are a handful of places left for the workshops, so if you’d like your own spooky, glowy, maniacal laughter device you can make your own (along with the two other projects). I’ve had a couple of these in my flat for a month of two now and can vouch for it being an addictive toy at any time of year!
Here are the sign up pages again:
Nottingham, 6th November at Nottinghack
Birmingham, November 27th at Meshed Media
Frieze? Zoo? Bah! Northfield was the main hotbed of creativity this weekend!
This year Matt and Ed’s Halloween Party was a) slightly earlier than expected and b) on the theme of Weird and Wacky. This therefore necessitated a quick trip down to my parents’ house to get to my stock of wallpaper paste and poster paints.
I’m afraid I don’t have many photos of the night itself, but there are probably plenty somewhere on Facebook by now…
update: the official website
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