A Minor Triumph

The pace of our blogging may have slowed, but we've been hard at work. Since our last entry we have:

• Significantly expanded our circle of active contributors (bios soon available on the main site)
  
• Made at least one major design change that will save us thousands of dollars (read: make the project financially feasible)
• Made good use of the wisdom and equipment in the physics department
• Created our first 8x8 grid!

This last point is the focus of today's entry, and it's pretty awesome. We have an 8x8 matrix of individually addressed LEDs, under the control of an Arduino and a Max7219 chip. We found some code to control it, and, as before, gave the whole system a triggering switch like we'll be using for the real sculptures.

Although there are a few technical barriers left, this was a huge step. We've essentially demonstrated proof-of-concept for the design, and one of the hardest things is now behind us. Our next goal is to get several of these 7219s working in a coordinated fashion, since our present plans call for using four at a time in the sculptures.

Pictures are on their way!