It’s the time again and I bring you an update to my ever aging ‘Mad Scientist’ Halloween costume. What started out as a college budget built led labcoat with just a clock and 4017 decade counter has evolved to include now two Arduino micro controllers. One runs the individual LED rows you see running random patterns. The second runs the scrolling marquee hanging off my chest. Everything is run off a 14.4V Li-Ion battery pack that I custom built. Even the LED Marquee is custom built.
There are a dozen different patterns chosen at random for the LED rows, and over 30 different quotes and animations stored in the marquee, also chosen at random. I chose quotes related to science, or giving homage to someone in science. More info on the base jacket (including source code) can be found around my blog.
The specs of the jacket are:
- 76 individual LEDS
- 7 Bi-color LED matrices
- 2 Arduinos
- 2 Switching voltage regulators
- one 14.4V 2.2Ah battery pack
- Over 100′ of wire
- The sweat, blood and tears of a goofy looking engineer
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8 Comments.
I love it!
[...] Porter] is getting down with the LEDs by making a Mad Scientist costume. The accent jewelry is an LED matrix necklace that he made himself to go along with 76 of them sewn [...]
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[...] I had been teaching at the FSU STEM Camp all week with my usual geek attire (8-bit tie, PCB tie, LED Lab coat) and the kids asked me what ‘outrageously cool’ thing I was gonna wear on the last day. [...]
[...] He had to impress more than 100 eighth graders at a STEM camp. He had already wowed them with an LED lab coat and an 8-bit tie, but they wanted to know what was next. So Porter invented the Tetris tie, a [...]
[...] necktie: one that plays Tetris. Bill made it to trump his usual geeky teaching attire, a lab coat with lots of LEDs on it. Even in its unfinished state I think we can all agree that the Tetris Tie [...]
[...] named Bill Porter invented the tie to impress his students at FSU STEM Camp. He had already worn an LED lab coat and an 8-bit tie and really wanted to dazzle them on their last day. According to his website, he [...]
[...] He had to impress more than 100 eighth graders at a STEM camp. He had already wowed them with an LED lab coat and an 8-bit tie, but they wanted to know what was next. So Porter invented the Tetris tie, a [...]