Skip to main content

Project: Use a Raspberry Pi to Power an LED-Based Record Finding System from Hack A Day

An amazing system that uses LED light strips to “slice and dice” a vinyl record collection, pointing the way to particular genres, years, or even individual albums in the collection. I could see this being useful for any collection where you have created a database for tracking including book libraries, archives, collections of objects and more. 

What I like best is this is a great way of creating an interactive way finding system that anyone could easily use for a collection. I an imagine that there are a lot of researchers who would love to be able to click a link and get directions to a specific resource no matter where it might be in a library or archive. What a great time saver.

Sure, it is a lot of work to create the database and then install the technology, but if you already have a database, what a great way of making even better use of it.

Project: Use a Raspberry Pi to Power a LED-Based Record Finding System from Hack A Day

I wanted to create a system to help me find specific records in my collection and an interesting visualization of information about the records in my collection. There's a webserver running on a raspberry pi that hosts a database of my record collection. You can search the database via a webpage in a browser on your computer or phone. When you select the desired record, the entire corresponding cubby/box lights up followed by the individual LED closest to your selected record's physical location. Using a raspberry pi, fadecandy and neopixels from adafruit.

Record shelf 1

Record shelf 2

Read the entire article

A video demonstration of the system

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Microsoft release Outlook.com email services to replace Hotmail

Today Microsoft released its new email service Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail brand. This new streamlined Metro interface design looks good and functions well so far. You can use your existing Microsoft account to log in and then choose an email alias (i.e. douglaswelch@outlook.com) for your new email address. Here are several articles that discuss Outlook.com... Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook.com [REVIEW]  Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature-Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft Go Get Your @Outlook Email Address Quick Before Someone Else Does I will post links to more articles and reviews as they appear.

Shared calendars are one part of an organized family

by Douglas E. Welch , techiq@welchwrite.com 206-338-5832 Reader/Listener Line As a parent with a school-age child, I often hear other parents bemoaning their disorganized existence. Along with the busy schedules of two working parents you might have art classes, karate classes, Little League, soccer and more. Add in more than one kid and organizing your life can quickly become a nightmare. This is exactly why one of my most important organizing devices is a shared calendar that reflects all the activities and events for everyone in the household...and I do mean everything. If someone -- is required to be somewhere -- at sometime, it goes into the calendar. If we are given a calendar that reflects all the events for a particular activity (say, Little League), all these events immediately go into the calendar, along with notations on whether we are providing the team snack, working in the snack bar, etc. Even events that occur anytime during the day, like family birthdays, and other rem...

Google Docs adds templates

I have started to move away from using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc) in favor of online tools like Google Docs . Even as a computer consultant, I find that I use probably less than 10% of the features in any of these projects. One feature I really like in Google Docs is the easy, online file sharing that also allows you to edit simultaneously with someone else. Today, Google Docs added some templates including business cards, brochures and more. At the moment, it looks like they are rolling out this feature over time, so you might not yet see the templates on your account. When available, you will find the templates under the New... menu item. From Open Loops ... Today, Google quietly rolled out a new feature for their Google Docs Applications: Templates! It's so new that it isn't even listed on the new features page at this time. When one opens their Google Docs account and chooses to start a new document, a new "From Template..." command is pre...