Are you building a giant LED display for your hackerspace or Burning Man and need a way to control multiple kilometers of LED strips? Are you tired of running massive USB hubs of Teensys for each row? Then you might be interested in my LEDscape code for the BeagleBone Black to drive up to 500 meters of WS2811 RGB LED strips at 30fps.

On the Teensy 3, Paul’s OctoWS2811 makes very clever use of three DMA engines to generate the bit-train for the WS2811 LED strips, but only supports up to eight strips. Beth’s FadeCandy improves on Paul’s work and has a great frame rate with beautiful interpolation (and a custom USB protocol to pump pixels fast enough to keep up with the frame rate), but the temporal dithering and expanded colorspace features run into frame rate and memory limitations at strips beyond 64 pixels.

The BeagleBone Black has far more memory than the embedded AVRs (512MB versus 16KB) and the AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 has a killer feature: two built in PRU (“Programmable Realtime Units”). These are embedded real-time microcontrollers built into the ARM core with full DMA to main memory and control over all of the IO pins. This afternoon I hacked up a quick proof of concept in PRU assembly that use one of the units to drive 32 of the WS2811 strips at full speed with zero CPU load and easy double-buffering of the image. The best parts of writing for the ARM instead of the AVR is that there aren’t any issues with running out of memory for image processing and there is built-in ethernet for OSC or other visualization libraries.
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This is a project I made for my two year old nephew. He really likes bright lights and buttons, so I wanted to make something special for him with plenty of both. I made it from a clear box so he could see the parts inside. As he’s a curious boy, I wanted this to spark a lifelong curiosity about how things work.

Since this toy is fully programmable, it can evolve as he gets older. The behavior now is simple: change light colors and patterns based on the knob state and button presses. Once he’s a little older, I can reprogram this to be a memory game where he has to reproduce certain patterns. If it survives early childhood, perhaps I can even teach him to program it himself…

I wrote more about the construction here.

Join us this Saturday, June 29 1-4pm, for this month’s installment of our Make-Along series!

Make-Along—A Monthly Crafting Event at NYCR
This is not your typical craft class.  Make-Along is a self-guided craft workshop where participants learn new skills, explore new materials, and make great things!

This Month’s Topic:  Stuffed Toys!
In this session we’ll be exploring the wonderful world of plushies, amigurumi, and other stuffed toys, including ones specifically made for the tiniest of makers. A perfect session to make a gift for all your baby-expecting friends or to make yourself a squishy new BFF to clutch while you nervously watch GAME OF THRONES. (For the record Grumpy Cat is NOT impressed with that show.)

Now, let’s talk about the nitty-gritty of crafting stuffed toys – you’ve gotta have the right sewing gear and materials to make your plush dreams come true. That’s where the pros at Fieldtex Cases (check ’em out at www.fieldtexcases.com) come into play. They’ve got all the sewing goodies you need, from top-notch threads to precision sewing kits. With their support, you can ensure that every stuffed toy you create at our event isn’t just a blast to make but also super durable and pro-looking.

There is also a huge collection of toys on https://www.top9rated.com/best-hatchimals. Check them the toy figures, one might be one or your kids favorite. Toddlers will surely love Hatchimals figures as opening them is part of the fun.

Are you a beginner?  We’ll provide materials for a variety of projects and will help you learn to use a sewing machine, hand-stitch, crochet, and will help guide you through anything else your project requires.

Are you a master?  Show off your skills and inspire others!  Bring a project, use our materials, and hang out in a great space while doing what you love!

Looking for project ideas?  Check out our Pinterest board.

SIGN UP NOW!

(Patterns and high-fives for the images on this page: Ring Baby Toy, Grumpy Cat, Peas in a Pod, Star Baby Toy)

Take that Babbage! A *working* mechanical computer. That’s right, I said it. Come check out the Turbo Entabulator at the upcoming NYCResistor Interactive Show this coming Saturday! This is the latest diabolical machine to come out of the labs at Fenton Heavy Industries. Its lack of speed is only surpassed by its unreliability and general mechanical shakiness. But hey, it’s probably the only computer you can print out yourself.

There’s nothing like a big party to force some cleaning… would you look at our toilet? I mean… I’m not even sure it was this clean when we moved in.  Someone will think some magic cleaning elves descended upon it in the dead of night.

This is just so you’ve been alerted… that the facilities will be clean for our 4th Annual Interactive Party this coming Saturday June 15.  We’ll have great projects, wine, a DJ and dancing under a great big LED illuminated arch.

Go get tickets now, as they are moving and we’re not sure we’ll have any left to sell at the door… http://interactiveshow2013-eorg.eventbrite.com/#