The first iteration of this project went from initial idea to working prototype in about 4 hours, a new record for myself and a testament to the power of open software/hardware. 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. The problem was I had nothing left in my closet and feared I would let them down. So when I went home exhausted that night (it’s tough teaching over 100 8th graders to solder!) and sat down at the work bench trying to decide what I could do in a night. Inspired by Adafruit’s Amplie-Tie, this is what I came up with.
This will be a short post as this is only revision 1 and I plan to vet this out to a more thought out project at some point. Here’s a video of what I had at the end of the night: (skip to bottom of page for newest video)
The tie is made out of 80 WS2811 based RGB LED pixels and is driven by a DigiSpark microcontroller. I pulled in this library written in assembly to drive the display and modified this tetris engine heavily to suit my needs. With limited RAM I had to strip out unneeded features and optimize the code that runs the game similar to Tetris to make it work, I also converted it to support color values as it was originally monochrome only. The code is a definite WIP but posted on here on Github as I play with it in the future. Game moves are random and I plan to attempt some puzzle solving algorithms soon. I had all parts on hand and total project cost comes in around $50.
It’s powered by 2 18650 Li-Ion battery cells in a battery box I used for my Wedding Suit and had lying around. They are installed in a 3D printed battery box with switch.
Battery box and the original suit it was designed for.
Structurally it’s just two pieces of card stock with fun bits sandwiched between and taped to a cheap clip-on. I plan to revisit the design and embed the strips directly into a fabric tie for long term use. Remember, I only did this in a single night. The kids loved it and the mission was accomplished.
Future Features
Next I’d like to add a basic AI to play the game, and/or a bluetooth connection for a human to play the game using a smart phone.
Update 1
I’ve restructured the tie so that the LEDs are now embedded into the tie instead of pasted on the front. It looks much cleaner now, thought the LEDs are dimmer, diffused by the fabric. I’ve also rewritten a new program that simulates a firework display, in time for Independence Day parties.
Update 2
I’ve built a second tie run by an Arduino Pro mini with all electronics and battery built into the tie itself. No more extruding wires. The battery is an older aftermarket Samsung Galaxy S1 cell phone battery, and I designed and printed a battery holder with my Makerbot. The LED driver library has been switched to Adafruit’s Neopixel library, and a AI player has been written by Mofidul Jamal.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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85 Comments.
[…] More here! […]
Totally rad & inspiring!
[…] him what he would be wearing on the last day. Not wanting to let the kids down, he whipped up an LED Tetris tie in an […]
As someone who made a (VERY BASIC) LED tie for an event a couple of months back, the post about this on hackaday with a mixture of wonder and horror (mine looks somewhat less impressive now!).
I’ve eagerly pored over the construction information you’ve provided, which has been most useful if I want to do something similar for a project in the future, but I’d also be interested to know how you’re powering this creation :).
Many thanks
For power, I used a battery pack left over from my wedding Suit (http://www.billporter.info/2013/04/22/our-geeky-wedding-electronic-wedding-attire/ )
and a switching regulator to drop it down to 5V.
Thank you for taking the time to let me know 🙂
[…] [Bill P] […]
[…] fan of wearing ties. But this LED Tetris Tie is quite intriguing. Turns out this is the result of a 4 hour project. The tie is made out of 80 WS2811 based RGB LED pixels and controlled by a DigiSpark micro […]
KICKSTART THIS NOW SO I CAN THROW MONEY AT YOU!
KICKSTARTER NOW!!! If you pretty this thing up a bit, my money will be on its way. Email me if you do!
Awesome. You mentioned on Gizmodo that the project is on GitHub ? Can you point me where it is? I would very much like to give it a stab
Scroll up! It’s right in the middle of this page! Or here now: https://github.com/madsci1016/LEDTetrisTie
[…] – Billporter and […]
[…] [Bill Porter via Geeks Are Sexy] […]
[…] Eine Krawatte auf der ihr dank modernster LED-Technologie Tetris spielen könnt. Kann es etwas Schöneres geben? Mehr Infos gibt es auf der Projektseite. […]
[…] The LED Tetris Tie, created by Bill Porter, is made of 80 WS2811 based RGB LED pixels and a DigiSpark microcontroller. The components are basically taped to a clip-on tie. Currently the Tetris blocks on the tie move randomly, but Porter plans to create an API that will enable him to play with it in the future. […]
[…] http://www.billporter.info/2013/06/21/led-tetris-tie/ […]
wow really cool, how easy would it be to port to an arduino uno?
keep it up
chris
Easy, it will port directly. Just keep in mind the current LED driver software needs to know the correct port #, not the Arduino pin number. Arduino pins 0-7 map directly, the rest don’t correlate.
Ok thanks, i might give it a try 🙂 looks awesome..
I think you should consider a kickstarter project
as the others suggested. Keep up the fun 🙂