Aurora Lite
Aurora Lite
Designed by Sean Hillmeyer
June 2007
Aurora Lite is an Ethernet enabled informational art project born to realize the dream of a much larger color LED display, hence the “Lite” postfix. The project uses Tri-Color LEDs mounted in a four by five grid to display up to 4,913 different colors on twelve individual pixels. A Basic Stamp microcontroller and a PINK module (Parallax Internet Netburner Kit), support the embedded LED control system. Each LED can be issued a color in standard html hex through a web page running on the device. Alternatively a computer can issue LED colors through shell scripts and Curl commands. This backend system enables the display to show animations, simple text, e-mail alerts, etc. Software can be written to display any type of information in the form of colors and sequences that make sense to the user. In the past color has been used to display the state of the market, the weather, and even the time.
Assembly of Aurora Lite took nearly three days. A generous amount of time was spent prior to assembly searching for parts and understanding the electronics involved. The firmware for the device was written in pBasic and is only about 120 lines long. The enclosure is an Ikea shadow box with velum and poster board forming the internal diffuser and grid. Matte board was the choice material for assembling the grid; however the substitution of more flexible poster board introduced an arty eccentricity to the piece. Future revisions may include power over Ethernet (PoE), additional LEDs, updated firmware, built in animations, wireless, and features I have yet to dream of. The original Aurora concept would have used 1,536 LEDs in six Ethernet linked panels to cover a wall with ambient light. Aurora Lite is a great first step towards the larger concept.