Architecture | Design

Model Making | Projects

Logo for JB Architecture depicting a stylized letter J and B.

Project 1 | All About You

The base concept for this project involved experimenting with light and sound using the Adafruit Playground Express to create a desired effect. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to create a kind of light box effect with a twist, basing the theme of my project on various horror media, namely Silent Hill. Rather than just using the silhouettes of the paper layers to create a scene, I wanted light to reveal a secondary image behind the paper. To achieve this I planned to utilize the Cricut Maker to cut out and draw on the layers of the light box.

Preparation
Construction of the project began with the design of each layer of the light box in Adobe Illustrator:
Transferring the designs to the Cricut Maker, each cutout–along with the housing for the lightbox–were cutout and compiled:
Finally, the Adafruit Playground Express was affixed to the back wall of the light box, connected to an external speaker. The code was written based off of examples of neopixels fading up and down in brightness and playing a sound on loop:
Code
import board
import digitalio
import time
import neopixel
try:
              from audiocore import WaveFile
except ImportError:
              from audioio import WaveFile

try:
              from audioio import AudioOut
except ImportError:
              try:    
                            from audiopwmio import PWMAudioOut as AudioOut
              except ImportError:    
                            pass

slide_switch = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.SLIDE_SWITCH)
slide_switch.direction = digitalio.Direction.INPUT
slide_switch.pull = digitalio.Pull.UP

spkrenable = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.SPEAKER_ENABLE)
spkrenable.direction = digitalio.Direction.OUTPUT
spkrenable.value = True

fadeValue = 0
fadeToggle = False
startTime = time.monotonic()
interval = 0.01
increase = 5

pixels = neopixel.NeoPixel(board.NEOPIXEL, 10, brightness=1, auto_write=False)
wave_file = open("siren_sound.wav", "rb")
wave = WaveFile(wave_file)
audio = AudioOut(board.SPEAKER)

while True:
               if(slide_switch.value == True):    
                          now = time.monotonic()    
                          if now - startTime > interval:        
                                       startTime = time.monotonic()        
                           
                                       if(fadeValue >= 255):            
                                                    fadeToggle = True        
                                       if(fadeValue <= 0):            
                                                    fadeToggle = False        
                                       if(fadeToggle == False):            
                                                    fadeValue=fadeValue+increase        
                                       if(fadeToggle == True):            
                                                    fadeValue = fadeValue-increase    
                          for neoPixelNum in range(len(pixels)):        
                                       pixels[neoPixelNum] = (fadeValue,0,0)        
                                       pixels.show()         
                          if audio.playing == False:        
                                       audio.play(wave)
                else:    
                          pixels.fill((0,0,0))    
                          pixels.show()
       
                time.sleep(0.01)
Demonstration