NYC Resistor

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Elect-o-meter

November 04th, 2008 | By: Devon

I recently updated my arduino ambient orb to use some boards I got cut at a boardhouse in Colorado, and handed off a few of the finished products off to various friends of mine.  Well, my good friend John Erickson tossed together an awesome script for the election returns tonight. The orb starts off dark, and the script periodically checks the election results. As the results come in, the orb will gradually get brighter and brighter blue or red based on who is pulling in the EVs.

I grabbed his script and a spare board I had with me at the office, and used a plastic cup to whip up a quick electoral ‘orb’:

Obama wins! McCain wins!
Obama wins! McCain wins!

I can’t wait to see the results tonight!

You can get the code for the electoral vote script from here and the full code and eagle schematics for the orb here.

11 Comments so far

  1. MAKE: Blog November 4th, 2008 4:36 pm

    Elect-o-meter…

    Devon at NYCR writes - I recently updated my arduino ambient orb to use some boards I got cut at a boardhouse in Colorado, and handed off a few of the finished products off to various friends of mine…….

  2. Boing Boing November 4th, 2008 5:32 pm

    Funny gadget — the Elect-o-meter…

    Devon of NYC Resistor made this nifty ambient device that shows who is winning at a glance. I recently updated my arduino ambient orb to use some boards I got cut at a boardhouse in Colorado, and handed off a few of the finished products off to variou…

  3. Apartment Therapy Home Tech November 4th, 2008 5:50 pm

    The Elect-o-meter Keeps Geeky Political Junkies in the Know…

    Apologies to any and all of you who are overwhelmed and sick of all this elections related news. We’d be the first to admit we’re spending almost as much time on political sites and blogs as home and tech related……

  4. Trevor November 4th, 2008 5:54 pm

    Awesome idea!
    Your link to the schematics is broken, by the way.

  5. Election Hack - How to Make an Electo-Meter! | zedomax.com - The DIY, HOW TO, Hacks, Gadgets, and Tech Blog! November 4th, 2008 6:23 pm

    [...] course, someone had to come up with this cool election hack on election day, an Electo-meter that tells you which senator becomes the next President of United States.  Make sure to embed your Google Election map today. Well, my good friend John Erickson tossed [...]

  6. Elect-o-meter| DIY Blog | Complete source of DIY Information, Tutorials, Guides, Reviews| DiyUs.com November 4th, 2008 8:13 pm

    [...] De­von­ at N­YC­R write­s­ - I r­e­c­e­n­tl­y­ u­pdate­d my­ ar­du­in­o­ ambie­n­t o­r­b to­ u­se­ so­me­ bo­ar­ds I go­t c­u­t at a bo­ar­dh­o­u­se­ in­ C­o­l­o­r­ado­, an­d h­an­de­d o­ff a fe­w­ o­f th­e­ fin­ish­e­d pr­o­du­c­ts o­ff to­ var­io­u­s fr­ie­n­ds o­f min­e­. W­e­l­l­, my­ go­o­d fr­ie­n­d Jo­h­n­ E­r­ic­kso­n­ to­sse­d to­ge­th­e­r­ an­ aw­e­so­me­ sc­r­ipt fo­r­ th­e­ e­l­e­c­tio­n­ r­e­tu­r­n­s to­n­igh­t. Th­e­ o­r­b star­ts o­ff dar­k, an­d th­e­ sc­r­ipt pe­r­io­dic­al­l­y­ c­h­e­c­ks th­e­ e­l­e­c­tio­n­ r­e­su­l­ts. As th­e­ r­e­su­l­ts c­o­me­ in­, th­e­ o­r­b w­il­l­ gr­adu­al­l­y­ ge­t br­igh­te­r­ an­d br­igh­te­r­ bl­u­e­ o­r­ r­e­d base­d o­n­ w­h­o­ is pu­l­l­in­g in­ th­e­ E­Vs. [...]

  7. schneider November 4th, 2008 11:06 pm

    Hello from the CCC chapter in Munich,

    we’ve seen your CNN script and adapted it to our wireless moodlamps.

    As we wanted a more precise reading we chose to display the percentages of the electoral votes in a fixed period of time. In this video:
    http://muc.ccc.de/files/blinklection.avi
    Obama is clearly leading, so we see pink(blue+red) for both candidates and the extra votes for Obama in pure blue.

    Greetings from Germany

  8. Will November 5th, 2008 12:21 am

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/compbrain/3004698910/ I did a bit of tweaking to the code to get a red-purple-blue balance instead of varying brightness’ of one or the other. Not that it matters anymore, but thanks for the great idea!

  9. Christian November 5th, 2008 12:47 pm

    Hey Devon,

    I got this running at a watch party I was at with an Arduino and a BlinkM from ThingM. Kept me well entertained till the celebrating started.

    Thanks,

    Christian

  10. eric gradman November 5th, 2008 5:55 pm

    Hey, I recognize that code :) Good work!

  11. Elect-o-meter | SquareCows November 5th, 2008 10:45 pm

    [...] Devon at NYCR writes - I recently updated my arduino ambient orb to use some boards I got cut at a boardhouse in Colorado, and handed off a few of the finished products off to various friends of mine. Well, my good friend John Erickson tossed together an awesome script for the election returns tonight. The orb starts off dark, and the script periodically checks the election results. As the results come in, the orb will gradually get brighter and brighter blue or red based on who is pulling in the EVs. [...]

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