Make real progress on your lighting effects goals by programming numerous animations in real-time with me. Missed a live lesson? You can access previous live recordings anytime.

Code your very first lighting animations on an LED strip from the first lesson!

From single strips that make room lighting fun to large-scale interactive media art with lights and sensors, learn to program a variety of LED products including strips, rings, matrix panels and Circuit Playground Express.

Whether you want to get started with LED strips for your props and cosplay projects or want to add more complex interaction for your electronics or art installations, this course is for you.

50% OFF + FREE 7-DAY TRIAL!

(normally $24.95/month)

STREAMING LIVE 7/28 AT 6 PM EST

Get ready to start adding lighting effects to your projects with some of your very first programs! I’ll show you how to determine which LED products are compatible with your microcontroller and best practices for powering projects of all sizes. With everything hooked up properly we’ll explore the necessary setup functions from the FastLED library using the Arduino IDE and then move on to building our first light patterns from scratch using any color we want and get started with animation fundamentals.

LESSON CONTENT:

Types of Programmable LED Strips
How to Connect an LED Strip to a Microcontroller
Understanding & Wiring the Power Supply
Introduction to the FastLED Library
Coding Your First Light Patterns

Now that we’ve played around with FastLED’s basic color functions, it’s time to take a deeper look at color manipulation and use RGB and HSV color modes to give us more control over complex animations. We’ll also look at functions to calibrate the strip’s default white balance and overall temperature.

LESSON CONTENT:

CRGB and CHSV Colors in FastLED
More Advanced Animations using HSV Values
Using EVERY_N_ to Create Non-blocking Delays
Create Themes with FastLED Color Palettes
Setting Overall Brightness
Color Correction & Temperature

So far we’ve created some amazing effects along the entire LED strip! The wave functions will allow us to create groups of moving light and color that can calmly undulate like waves in the ocean or pulse sharply as if you’re at a DJ rave party. Blur functions add a fading head and tail to each wave to help us blend seamlessly between wave patterns and sets the professional apart from the amateur for Knight Rider and Cylon effects. Continuing our journey into professional lighting, we’ll examine noise functions which add an organic feel to light movement and color – an important element for character design, cosplay and interactive displays and media installations.

LESSON CONTENT:

Creating Waves & Pulses with beatsin8/16
Manipulating Waves with Phase Offset
Adding Waves to a Pattern
Microcontroller Memory Considerations
Types of Waves including Sawtooth
Blurring Waves
Using inoise8(x) for Realism
Timing of Waves
Fill Functions

We may have our LED strip faithfully doing our bidding, but what about controlling an entire LED matrix panel? We’ll see how many of the functions we’ve used so far look like when displayed on a matrix and how to fine-tune the patterns. Then it’s time to create our own custom matrix patterns including sprites and 8-bit art!

LESSON CONTENT:

Wiring LED Matrix Panels
Using XYMatrix to Translate XY Coordinates to a Linear Array Index
Animating Patterns & Noise Across a Matrix
Animating Pixel, Sprite & 8-bit art on an LED Matrix
Soldering Together Custom Matrices
Animating Across Irregular Matrices

The Circuit Playground Express is a great way to get started with interactive lighting because it contains a variety of sensors on one board. We’ll walk through the installation steps, then write our first sketches allowing our LED strip to behave in different ways depending on sensor input.

LESSON CONTENT:

Using the Light Sensor to Control LEDs
Using the Sound Sensor to Control LEDs
Using the Temperature Sensor to Control LEDs

We’ll continue exploring more sensors on the Circuit Playground Express like capacitive touch sensing and how to use the accelerometer to detect motion and taps! In order to develop more complex interactive artworks, installations, and experiences we’ll learn to create non-blocking programs so we can have multiple inputs and outputs going at the same time.

LESSON CONTENT:

Using Capacitive Touch Sensors to Control LEDs
Using the Accelerometer to Control LEDs
Non-blocking Programs for Multiple Inputs & Outputs

WHY WE’RE DIFFERENT

Your maker journey doesn’t end after the last lesson. That’s when you’re just getting started! Accelerate your growth with a supportive and inspiring group of peers as a member of our Artistic Engineering community.

In addition to this course, members have access to:

COURSES

All live and on-demand courses for a more well-rounded skillset.
All course activity feeds.
Updates & revisions to all courses.

LIVE virtual community making sessions where we dedicate time to our projects, share skills, showcase what we’re working on, ask questions and interact with peers.

COMMUNITY

A community of supportive and engaged makers who are excited to offer encouragement, accountability, and feedback on your projects (including me).
A mobile app to help you stay connected with our community anywhere, anytime.

50% OFF + FREE 7-DAY TRIAL!

$12.48/MONTH

Whether you prefer to keep up with the live lessons or go through them on demand at your own pace, you benefit from the same create- and code-along experience and you’re never alone on your creative journey. Along with me, our community is open 24/7 to review assignments, provide feedback and help you troubleshoot projects.