Desktop LED Matrix With Touchscreen [LED 2] ECE342-W22

C++
Python
3D Printing
Software Engineering
Arduino
PCB
Enclosure
Hardware

This project is a 5x5x7 RGB LED matrix controlled by a touchscreen GUI. Inside the enclosure is a Raspberry Pi, which runs the GUI, and an Arduino Mega, which runs the various animations as instructed by the Raspberry Pi. There is also multiple PCBs, a temperature sensor, and power delivery circuits inside the enclosure. The LED matrix has many functions, among them are "blue shift" and its red and green variants, which turn on one horizontal plane of LEDs to the specified color, then the next plane below it and so forth, then loops back to the top. It can also make every LED go white, display random colors on every LED on a clock cycle, a run a text message character by character through the vertical planes. But the feature we are most proud of is entering custom text messages through the GUI and displaying them character by character on the LED matrix. Another feature does a similar thing, but instead displays the current ambient temperature. This product is intended to just be a desk toy, or possibly a very expensive lamp if you want a more practical use for it. We felt accomplished in how the code for this project was done by Matthew and Sharon in only a matter of days, which was necessary due to difficulties acquiring hardware. This project featured many "firsts" as well, with the PCBs being designed by Austin, who had no previous experience with PCB design, and the enclosure being modeled by Blake, who hadn't ever used CAD software before. However accomplished we felt, we also knew we would change so many things if we were to do it again. For example, we would have designed the enclosure to much higher tolerances due to printing imperfections, we would have designed the PCB much earlier and more efficiently so there wouldn't be a coding time-crunch, and we would have chosen a different method for driving the LEDs.

5 Lifts 

Artifacts

Name Description
Executive Project Summary A summary of the need that the project addresses, the project process phases, the challenges, and what we learned while doing it.   Download
Project Summary Video Project Summary Video including a 90-second “elevator speech” summarizing your project.   Link