erc-bpgc/led-octapad

MIDI controller using capacitive touch sensors for input and an array of 324 individual LEDs. Display Project for the technical festival of BITS-PILANI (Goa Campus) - Quark 2020.

LED Octapad

Well technically, an LED hexapad, but Octapad kinda stuck early on and no one wanted to change that name.

The LED Octapad is, at its heart, a MIDI controller, but specced up with 324 individually controlled RGB LEDs. This means the pads are dynamic, reacting in real time to your touch, while also sending MIDI signals to your computer to play, say a virtual drum machine, or a virtual piano.

Project Members

Abhishek Dixit, Aditya Bidwai, Advait Kulkarni, Tanmay Bhonsale, Tanmay Devale, Vedant Shah, Yash Jangir

Uploading the code

The touch controller

The project has 2 microcontrollers: One to handle the touch responses, and one to handle the precarious task of handling 300+ neopixels. We've used a teensy LC for the former. Be sure to have installed the teensy loader first. To set it up:

1. Load midiTouchTeensy.ino
2. In the arduino IDE, select Tools > USB type > "Serial + MIDI"
3. Upload.

The NeoPixel controller

An UNO handles 6 separate strips of neopixels - one in each hexagon. Only one Adafruit_NeoPixel object is instantiated though, and different strips are handled using Adafruit_Neopixel.setPin() method. The strip is arranged concentrically inside each hexagon.

To set it up:

1. Load ledSlaveUNO.ino
2. Upload.