I got an email from a friend a while ago showing me Lady GaGa’s (at the time) new video, Poker Face, in which for about two seconds shows her wearing (as she called them) ‘TV glasses’. She had asked if I could do something like that for her. Again, at the time I hadn’t considered using a micro-controller.
I finally decided to listen to an episode of FLOSS Weekly (with Leo Laporte and Randal Schwartz) entitled ‘Arduino’–it’s a micro controller which seems to have exactly the right amount of power to do what I’m looking to do (and for a reasonable cost).
Arduino is an open-source micro-controller which is programed in a unique language which steals from C an C++ (so it’s fairly easy), and costs only $20-$40. In discussion with this friend, she can’t decide whether she wants a (many)x(many), pre-packaged LED matrix or individual LEDs, the deciding factor is whether I can find a small enough LED to fit behind a lens of a pair of sunglasses. (This is the key to the whole project). The biggest issue with the LED matrix is the size of a backing controller.
I still have to find the electronics I need for this, find a way to effectively display intelligible characters or simple images without having to write to the LED, meaning I need to write a layer of abstraction.
Links:
More information about Arduino.
Lady GaGa’s video on Youtube, Poker Face.
Errata,
Sample image from Poker Face video:
