It's Lit

Inspiration

The way we perceive the world around is is greatly impacted by visuals. We wanted to create a device which would help people enhance their auditory experience through visuals.

What it does

It's Lit receives audio input through its microphone. It then analyzes the input against the previous input to see if the volume threshold meets or surpasses a certain value. If it does, a set of LEDs are illuminated. Two different LED sequences are being used to display the two different sensitivities.

How I built it

We got audio input from a microphone and brought the data into an IDE for analysis with an Arduino. We wrote a program that illuminates the LEDs with specific sensitivities to the audio volume. We accomplished this by taking the average of a sample size and comparing it to the previous sample size through a percentage volume change. We found that certain elements of songs, like vocals and drum snares, have different volume changes. The LEDs visualize these elements of the audio.

Challenges I ran into

For 2/3 members, this was our first hackathon. Getting started difficult was difficult as we tried to narrow down our idea to something that was feasible yet challenging enough to gain the most out of this weekend. We had to figure out the most effective way to determine if the LEDs should illuminate or not. The differences between the outputs with audio from those without were very hard to distinguish, so we opted to use comparative percentage values. We had to teach ourselves how to use C++ and technology like the Arduino.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We are proud that we have created our first hardware hack and we have a working prototype to share. We learned the basics of C++ and how to use logic to troubleshoot hardware and software. For example, we learned that an Arduino only has limited memory and you must either expand it or work within it's restraints to accomplish your goals. We also learned that the way an electronic component is places is extremely important. If it is backwards a short circuit may occur and in our case, we blew out an LED.

What I learned

All three of us learned a lot more about electrical engineering than we had expected to this weekend. I do not think any of us even expected to attempt a hardware project. We learned how to code in C++ and how to work with microcontrollers and Breadboards.

What's next for It's Lit

We envision It's Lit expanding to incorporate more LEDs with their own sensitivities to the audio. After some fine tuning, It's Lit will come in many colors and designs and even be portable. In the future we would like to make a full scale It's Lit to be used by the deaf to visibly see the music they are listening to.