Cubic LED Visualizer: Group 04 ECE342-Sp21

C++
3D Printing
Arduino
PCB
Consumer Product
Junior Design

This system is an 8x8x8 array of LEDs which will be individually addressable. It will be capable of displaying pre-programmed animations as well as user created custom animations. This product is made possible through a QT based portable executable GUI which handles user input and communicates it to an Arduino microcontroller which then controls the LED array. This required us to learn the QT framework, 3D model design and printing, USB port communication, and methods for overcoming the design constraints like low memory and low pin count on the Arduino. We overcame the low memory by using an independent portable executable which has its own allocated memory on the PC it's running on. This memory is used to store all the full animations, and each animation is transmitted frame by frame to the Arduino, so the Arduino only needs to store a single frame of an animation at a time. In the future, we would like to add statically stored custom animations so that upon closing and re-opening the GUI, the data would be persistent. Further, we would like to add the ability to re-edit custom animations after closing the menu, and cycle through the frames to edit previous frames. Finally, another excellent area we would like to develop would be an adjustable framerate (animation playback speed).

1 Lifts 

Artifacts

Name Description
Video Presentation A short video presentation of our project.   Link
Developer Guide A document displaying full developer information on the full system, its specifications, code, logic, guide, and parts.   Download
Project Summary An overview of the scope of the project, as well as the trials and logistical difficulties the group overcame.   Download