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Topic: led light strip using scratchx (Read 225 times) previous topic - next topic



I am an elementary art teacher trying to create a lesson involving technology. I want to teach my students about Leo Villareal. Here is an example of his work. He uses led's and coding to create animation within the lights. Students at my school have been using scratch.mit.edu for years so I want to stick with the kind of coding blocks they already use. I want to use  several addressable led light strips (ws2801) so that my students can program their own animations. So far I have been able to use scratchx with my arduino to make led's on a breadboard work but I am stuck on how to get it to work with the led strip. Is this possible to do with the code blocks already available in scratchx found here or by creating new blocks for them to use? If yes, how would I use the code blocks to make the lights turn on/off, set time duration, change color, and adjust the brightness of each led. 

I am really interested in using technology in my classroom but I am pretty much self taught when it comes to coding and Arduino. That means I am not very competent and am probably using incorrect terminology. Any help is greatly appreciated.


Sep 22, 2016, 03:15 am Last Edit: Sep 22, 2016, 03:15 am by jrdoner
I am familiar with the LED strips such as NeoPixels.  They require a command sequence to be loaded into the strip which configures all the LED's in the whole strip, then the strip lights.  Using Arduino code, these strips are controllable through a library, and I doubt that anyone would want to attempt to bit bang the command sequence together and send it without using the library.

I also saw scratchx when my grandkid was playing with it.  I don't know enough about it to know its full coding capabilities, but again, if that IDE can handle Arduino libraries, maybe you'd get there.

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