Lets Light Up the Party

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  Final Design of the Hat

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  Circuitry

• 

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  LED Matrix

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  Microphone Sensor that picked up the music

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  Led Matrix embedded in the hat

Inspiration

Upon inception of this project, we decided to create some sort of wearable device to take advantage of the benefits that surface mount LEDs provide. We wanted the product to be fun. Parties are fun, so our design stemmed from that!

What it does

Party Hat uses the sound sensor to detect the level of noise in the environment and based on the input difference from one measurement to the next one it will choose which set of LEDs to turn on in the array. Lower differences light up on the left side of the hat, higher differences light up towards the right.

How I built it

The sound sensor used for this project was a High Sensitivity Sound Microphone Sensor detection module for arduino AVR PIC W. These values were then used to find the difference between consecutive inputs and the difference was mapped to specific columns of the LED array using an algorithm. The blue piece in the microphone is a potentiometer that was adjusted to get the desired sensitivity of the microphone until the desired output was obtained. On the model construction side, holes were carved into the hat for the surface mount LEDs. The LEDs were soldered and then attached to the hat. The Matrix was one of the most complex parts of the project. Since there were not enough output pins for our matrix, we had to use a decoder and various Nor Gates to actually connect each output to the Arduino. Once that was assembled the next hardest part was relaying the code in the Software to take in the microphone's input and do the correct image display with the LEDs on the hat.

Challenges I ran into

Soldering was by far the hardest part of the project. Once an LED was fried, it was difficult to locate and replace that piece. It was a tiresome process.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am extremely proud of how well our decoder worked. I went in with no experience in decoders and came out with great knowledge and a design that worked.

What I learned

I learned how to make a design work an Arduino if there are not enough output pins for the design. Multiplexing was difficult, but I got the basic hang of it.

What's next for Party Hat

We are going to take our hats to our parties and have fun with our lights!

Built With

• adobe-illustrator
• arduino