Touch box

Craig writes –

Recently I have been exploring Physical Computing. I have always preferred learning new subjects by developing self-defined projects that use the topics, skills or components I want to understand. Here is my latest project that is helping me understand digital electronics.

This whatchamacallit uses an Arduino NG for the microcontroller and an LED Red/Green/Blue Serial Matrix from Spark Fun for the display. When left on its own the display randomly displays patterns and alphanumeric characters that dissolve by way of some random shenanigans. It also picks colors randomly from a set that I have deemed aesthetically pleasing. My first computer was an Atari 400 (1979). Its system font used an 8 X 8 matrix which just fits the RGB LED matrix. So for old-times-sake I found the font on the internet, and with a little massaging in Photoshop and Actionscript, encoded it in a form I could transfer to the Arduino for use on the LED Matrix display.

Touch Box – Link.

I like the fork.