House of LEDs

For this lab:

We were asked to control the output of three LED lights using the Arduino board and a manual input, such as with a keyboard control. Also, to build a diffuser to cover the LEDs.

Materials:

3 LEDs

3 220K Resistors

Arduino, Breadboard, Wires

Poster, Glue (for the Diffuser)

I used the code to manipulate the color and intensity using the keyboard controls, pressing r, g, and b to change the output of the corresponding red, green and blue LEDs.  For the diffuser, I built a small house using poster and glue.

Here's a look:  http://youtu.be/y1A3URZLPuM

Code:

*
 * Serial RGB LED
 * ---------------
 * Serial commands control the brightness of R,G,B LEDs
 *
 * Command structure is "<colorCode><colorVal>", where "colorCode" is
 * one of "r","g",or "b" and "colorVal" is a number 0 to 255.
 * E.g. "r0"   turns the red LED off.  
 *      "g127" turns the green LED to half brightness
 *      "b64"  turns the blue LED to 1/4 brightness
 *
 * Created 18 October 2006
 * copyleft 2006 Tod E. Kurt <tod@todbot.com
 * http://todbot.com/
 */

char serInString[100];  // array that will hold the different bytes of the string. 100=100characters;
                        // -> you must state how long the array will be else it won't work properly
char colorCode;
int colorVal=0;

int redPin   = 9;   // Red LED,   connected to digital pin 9
int greenPin = 10;  // Green LED, connected to digital pin 10
int bluePin  = 11;  // Blue LED,  connected to digital pin 11

void setup() {
  pinMode(redPin,   OUTPUT);   // sets the pins as output
  pinMode(greenPin, OUTPUT);   
  pinMode(bluePin,  OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
  analogWrite(redPin,   0);   // set them all to mid brightness
  analogWrite(greenPin, 0);   // set them all to mid brightness
  analogWrite(bluePin,  0);   // set them all to mid brightness
  Serial.println("enter color command (e.g. 'r43') :");  
}

void loop () {
  // clear the string
  memset(serInString, 0, 100);
  //read the serial port and create a string out of what you read
  readSerialString(serInString);
    
  colorCode = serInString[0];
 
      if( colorCode == 'r' || colorCode == 'g' || colorCode == 'b' ) {
        colorVal = 0;
          for (int i=0; i<10; i++) {
            if (serInString[i] == 'r' ||serInString[i] == 'g' ||serInString[i] == 'b' ) {
              colorVal = colorVal + 10;
            }
          }
      
    Serial.print("setting color ");
    Serial.print(colorCode);
    Serial.print(" to ");
    Serial.print(colorVal);
    Serial.println();
    serInString[0] = 0;                   // indicates we've used this string
    if(colorCode == 'r')
      analogWrite(redPin, colorVal);
    else if(colorCode == 'g')
      analogWrite(greenPin, colorVal);
    else if(colorCode == 'b')
      analogWrite(bluePin, colorVal);
  }
 
  delay(100);  // wait a bit, for serial data
}

//read a string from the serial and store it in an array
//you must supply the array variable
void readSerialString (char *strArray) {
  int i = 0;
  if(!Serial.available()) {
    return;
  }
  while (Serial.available()) {
    strArray[i] = Serial.read();
    i++;
  }
}