Programmable LED Rave Mask

Video Demo

What is it?

I built an LED mask with effects inspired by the visuals seen at raves. The mask loops through multiple effects as seen in the demo video.

What was this built with?

The LED rave mask was built by using an Arduino and WS2812B light strips. The arduino was programmed in C++ and utilized the FastLED library. I used the WS2812B light strips as they are individually addressable with the data pin.

What were the biggest challenges?

Programming the led light strips was very difficult. The leds are treated as one single 2d array, which means that it treats is as a single strip of leds instead of 11 rows of leds. My solution was to manually hardcode some designs into the array and have the Arduino loop through them.

I also had to figure out how to animate the designs. My method was to have a function that fades from one design to the next one. This allowed the effects to be smoother.

In the future I would like to create more complex designs instead of fading through designs.

What did I learn?

I learned the importance of power efficency in order to maximize the number of leds I can use while still outputting colors correctly. This project got me to self-learn how Arduinos work and how to solder components together. I used what I learned from this project to create a new version of this LED mask.