The Light Fantastic: Neopixel illuminated Pinewood Derby car

EL Wire/Tape/Panels, LEDs, pixels and strips, LCDs and TFTs, etc products from Adafruit

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beermat
 
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The Light Fantastic: Neopixel illuminated Pinewood Derby car

Post by beermat »

My sons Cub Scout pack has a Pinewood Derby 'open' race for family members, so I decided to enter this year. My initial goal was to 'add a few lights' to a car, but I had no set idea of what I was going to do.....but, a few weeks later, after discovering the TinyScreen+ from TinyCircuits, Neopixels from Adafruit and LSM303 Accelerometer/Compass from Adafruit, (and with much research, learning and experimentation), I present "The Light Fantastic"! (The flicker on the TinyScreen+ display is an artifact of this video - in real life, it's rock solid)

The car plays through a sequence of Neopixel patterns with OLED bitmap displays, animations and text marquees, and can detect being tilted forward to switch to a "race mode" RPM-style gauge display. A menu can be accessed by pressing one of the microswitches, and the mouse pointer/settings/compass display accessible from there are controlled by tilting/rotating the car. Obligatory TinyScreen game Flappy Birdz is included and also playable on the car! The menu, along with selections of brightness configuration, displaying a compass and playing Flappy Birdz, are shown at the end of the video. Enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Pty_Ip0gw

Egon Beermat

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: The Light Fantastic: Neopixel illuminated Pinewood Derby

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

That's awesome! Thanks for the video.

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jim_lee
 
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Re: The Light Fantastic: Neopixel illuminated Pinewood Derby

Post by jim_lee »

That's cool! And looks like it took a lot of careful coding.

-jim lee

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gerber1725
 
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Re: The Light Fantastic: Neopixel illuminated Pinewood Derby

Post by gerber1725 »

Would you be willing to share your code and your wiring diagram? I would love to make something like this but I don't have the skills or know how to start from scratch.

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