Web Based LightUp Speakers!!

Web Based LightUp Speakers!

Hi there! I just wanted produce a blog post on my final project for the year.

For my final project of the year, I built a light up speaker. However I just did another blog post about that! This one is a little bit different...

For starters, this speaker is much larger(even though the cost of the part was around the same). The speakers alone will pull up to 200 watts from the wall(however I have limited it to around 100 so I don't damage any components and save my hearing). There are about 100 neopixel leds on the project, so the light count is higher as well. However, numbers don't mean anything. The best feature of this speaker is how you connect to it!

The speaker utilizes a Raspberry Pi microcomputer to act as the brains of the machine. This raspberry pi allows the speaker to be controlled via a web interface(however it should remain behind a firewall as port forwarding is not a good idea, unless you want some to play random music on your raspberry pi, or really take over your network for that matter). This web interface allows you to choose music from various music hosting websites such as Spotify, soundcloud and TuneIn.

How did I do that? Well, I actually dislike sitting at a desk and programming for more than 2-4 hours at a time, and I'm definantly not experienced enough to program this entirely by myself. So I used cool framework called mopidy, which basically runs the backend of the server, and handles all the tasks of streaming and finding the music. All I did was install it using the terminal, and configure the settings and modify the exiting interface, and set it to boot on startup. But still, it's pretty awesome that I can just on any browser and type the internal ip the the speaker and change the music!!

Heres a build log of the physical project!!

Light Up Spekaers

Light Up Speakers!

So this is gonna be a shorter blog post, but I would just like to have a quick post about my mini light up speaker!

So, I started this project 3 weeks before the end of school, looking for something small to perfect my combination of neopixel lights and music to make an enriching experience. I had planned to finish the project in 4-5 hours, and only spend 60$ on the parts. But I realized how hard smaller electronics for audio are to work with inside a jar, and spent about 100$ on the projects. I went through 2 Arduino Nanos, accidentally putting the pins in the wrong spot, and pulling more power than the Arduino could deliver. The same scenario with the neopixels I used the project, killing about 60 neopixels before fixing it. The primary reason I even continued working on it was because I really wanted to give a gift to someone, and I decided that I wanted to give them this. Finally, after 20 hours of working the project, I finished building it. And the video is below!!

Nitro RC Car!

Nitro RC Car

Hey there!

So, I figured I should write a blog post for one of parts of my genius project : my RC car. Well, here it goes!

The Nitro RC car was the most fun project. During the construction process, I spent literally months researching the necessary parts. A little background, I was very into cars as a kid. And I loved learning how they work. I read tons of car and computer books during my childhood, and some of it stayed with me. I did however need to relearn a lot of new concepts, and adjust my mindset for the smaller scale. I spent much more time researching parts, concepts, records and mechanics to fully understand how Nitro RC cars work that spent on actually building and modifying the car.

The construction process was relatively short and painless. I didn't completely fabricate more of my parts. Instead, I used amazon and other hobbyist websites to order my individual parts. The majority of the parts were compatible, and the parts that weren't were by design, as I did fabricate some of my own solutions to keep the project as 'cheap' as possible. Total cost of the project is around 350$, which might seem like much. But most RC nitro cars range from 300$-1000s$. Some examples of objects I fabricated myself is I 3D printed body panels around the car to project it from bumps. I used roller skating bearings for my front and rear wheels to decrease friction, increasing the amount of power put on the wheels. I painted most of the parts black to keep a consistent color scheme. I bought roughly 20 different springs and 10 different types of shocks trying to find the perfect balance between off-reading capability and steering performance. I tuned the Nitro, trying to find the perfect mixture of air-fuel, to produce the best performance and reliability for the motor. I modified the servos and steering.

The entire system uses an Arduino, with a receiver and transmitter on both the RC cars and the ground to control the nitro RC car. The reason I replaced the entire system is because I mounted RGB LEDs all over the Nitro car to enrich the viewing experience, and I noticed that the throttle response on the (unmodifiable) remote and receiver combo I bought didn't align with the throttle management. The Remote gave me direct control over the vehicle, meaning I would have to accommodate how the car puts power down, and steers in real time. So if I put my finger on the trigger too quickly, the rush of air into the vehicle sometimes cause the motor to stall, or put down so much power that I would lose control over the vehicle. I realized that I wanted control that would be smoother than my hand could deliver, and would make decisions over how to put the power down. So using an 2 nanos and 2 wifi modules, I built a system where one nano with a wifi chip would replace the electronics in the transmitter, send the steering and throttle information over to my computer, which would use processing(which I know is slow, but I have a slow reaction time so I didn't notice it) to take that signal, process it so that the vehicle would be easier to control, and send it to the nano chip on board the RC car.

Here's a clip of the vehicle, sorry I didn't show how the receiver and transmitter worked. The code wasn't entirely done by me so I don't have a complete understanding of it, but it made a world of a difference. Before, I had a tendency to constantly adjust my steering, and I would put my finger on the throttle too quickly, causing spinouts, unwanted burnouts and engine stalls. Now the vehicle is controllable enough for me to use(even though I crashed it @ the end of the video)