For my midterm I decided to implement my passion for music into a project using the arduino and a visual stimuli to create a reaction out of an audience. I first started by researching different ways to do this. When I found projects on Hackaday, Sparkfun, and Instructables I was inspired to create a music reactive lamp that could not only serve as a source of entertainment for when listening to music but also to help me visualize the music I create. I looked at a couple of lamps that were similar to the cylindrical shape I had envisioned. I thought of using water as a diffuser for the light along with sanded acrylic among other things. I decided to go with something simple and cut off a piece of paper blinds I had in my house, wrapping it into a box shape. As far as my process with the arduino I used many different sources and videos for coming up with the code. For the most part I was able to use a program from a Sparkfun user to test most of my components and make adjustments as needed. In terms of the final product, I was satisfied with the outcome. The light diffused smoothly enough to ease the blinding brightness of the LED’s while not taking to much away from their color. The code cycles through different colors and jumps to the beat of the music
Video of project in action:
