Lots Of LEDs Assignment:
This assignment is mainly geared towards teaching you soldering skills and to understanding binary code, how 1’s and 0’s can be translated into bytes. You are required to have a working LOL shield prototype that is enclosed and that has a thoughtful concept that goes beyond making a functional project. You can use the excel sheet provided to you by the LOL shield maker Jimmie Rodgers, in order to make any animation you would like frame by frame. All of the resources such as the library and other files can be found here: http://jimmieprodgers.com/kits/lolshield/
The LOL Shield theater is a great project done by falldeaf where you can create animations on your site and use your computer serial through a python script to gain access to your animations online. Here is a great article that explains the process and links to all of the files here: http://falldeaf.com/2011/02/the-lol-shield-theatre/
Here is the proper site for the LOL Shield Theater animations: http://lolshield.falldeaf.com . You can create animations and his software will generate XML files for you, which you can call using his API, here: http://falldeaf.com/lolshield/robot_xml.php?
Also, I found loads of RGB led matrix displays on adafruit’s site, they have also created libraries to run their shields. You can find the shields and their tutorials here: http://learn.adafruit.com/category/led-matrix
Those of you interested in learning more about charileplexing should read the Chapter 7.9 Controlling a Matrix of LEDs: Charlieplexing starting on pg. 265 in the Arduino Cookbook by O’reily that I shared with you earlier in the semester.
See you Friday!