ECE Discovery project

PC ambient lighting project

This project loops through all of the pixels on display and then calculates the average color of them then sends this to the RGB LEDs to display. Star Wars is a great way to showcase it because of the cool effect during lightsaber dueling; when the lightsabers clash, the effect creates a cool new color change in the background. The Arduino receives the RBG values of all of the pixels on the computer, and then outputs them to an LED behind the screen which provides ambient lighting.

• What challenges did the project present?

  • There's always a worry that after you order everything and set it all up that it just won't work. I had this worry when I built my computer because you spend so much money on all the parts. I have never used an Arduino before and I assumed it would be simple to get one, but there are many kinds of Arduinos when I looked on the website and it was a little scary. It worked out because I got help from my friends who have used them before with robotics. The code itself wasn’t too bad since I’ve written stuff in java before.

• ​Did the project reaffirm or make you question your intended course of study in ECE?

  • I don’t like circuitry as much as I like the coding aspect of it. I chose computer engineering because I thought that I wouldn’t want to code every day for my career but the more I’ve been coding, the more I’ve been enjoying it. This project made me realize that I’m going to lean more towards computer science with my CmpE major, but I’m going to stay in CmpE because I enjoy the fun things that you can do with hardware.

• Did the project reveal any ECE threads you hadn't considered pursuing before?

  • No, I’m fairly certain in the threads that I’ve chosen and I’m not interested in any of the EE threads.

• What are the next steps? Do you plan to build on this experience?

  • There isn’t much extra with this project, but I can use the experience I have gained in using an Arduino to further do more projects that I’m interested in. There's so much you can do with an Arduino. I think the next thing I wanna try is to use a Wii nunchuk as an input device for my computer, so I can play video games with style. Another thing I wanna try is to monitor the temperature of my pc and make a light that lights different colors based on the temps. I'm really excited by all the possibilities that Arduinos present with hardware and I/O.