It’s fun and easy to light up your holiday season with Beagleboard.org® PocketBeagle®
It’s tiny size and great 1GHz performance, makes PocketBeagle® the ideal controller for your holiday displays. In addition to the main 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU, the AM3358 SOC inside PocketBeagle® has a couple of “Aces up it’s sleeve” called PRUs. The PRU (programmable real-time units) are 2 32-bit 200 MHz programmable microcontrollers. These PRU’s can be programmed to run parts of your program and off-load the main processor, things like PWM’s to make motors or LED’s do EXACTLY what you want them to do. The beauty is thanks to Linux; easy to integrate libraries and community software development IDEs make it easy for even a novice to accomplish fun and impressive projects. Check out these holiday lighting projects, well documented for beginners. Please tell us about yours!
Anticipating our favorite time of the year is fun with BeagleBoard.org® PocketBeagle® Christmas Countdown Display. Add a PocketScroller LED Panel Cape and the great software controller Falcon Christmas’ Falcon Player (FPP) to set up a 64×32 RGB LED Matrix to display any pictures or messages. Jason set up his as a countdown clock to answer a question that comes often in the house of a toddler anticipating the upcoming holiday!
2) PocketBeagle® Wearable Tops Off Your Holidays
Wearable electronics projects are all the craze during the holiday season from ‘ugly holiday sweater parties’ to themed costumes. PocketBeagle® can light up independently addressable LED strands with ease and Python libraries. Cathy sewed hers into a holiday hat for Rea with a motion activated sensor to light up the night.
3) Rose-Hulman ECE Christmas Lights
These students took addressing LEDs up a notch. Check out the video of Professor Mark Yoder explaining all of the different ways the LED strand is programmed on the Electrical and Computer Engineering Christmas tree at Rose-Hulman University. By using Blockly, a graphical programming interface, it opens a whole world of lighting features including throwing snowballs!
4) PocketBeagle Motion Controlled Wreath Welcomes Visitors
Using lights at the front door is a great way to greet visitors this holiday season. Eshtaartha and Neeraj put together a motion activated holiday wreath easily using Python libraries from Adafruit. Use this project to add motion activated lighting to any of your holiday displays.
Email us at Christi@beagleboard.org or comment below and tell us about your holiday creation!