Google Home Visual Light Encoding

Give Google home a message and then LED lights run by an Arduino will blink, corresponding to the original letters

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Inspiration

Sam had previously experimented with making a Stranger Things-esque message encoder with an LED string, but he never finished that project.

What it does

You speak into a Google Home and say, "Ok, Google. Talk to LED Message Converter" Then you say, "Send [say your message]" Both projects will automatically fetch the messages from the Firebase server The Arduino-based project will automatically display the message in the LED lights The Dragonboard-based project will automatically blink the LCD Display's backlight and the differing colors represent different letters

How we built it

We started with designing a Google Home program to send messages from a Google Home to Firebase. Then we developed a Python program to fetch the messages from Firebase. Then Lorenzo modified some example code on the Dragonboard to interface with the LCD display. Sam used some Adafruit example code to interface with the LED Lights and then wrote a Python script to send messages to the Arduino.

Challenges we ran into

We would have rather used the Dragonboard's Arduino shield, but no Arduino code could be run on it, no matter what we tried. We have an alternate code sample that demonstrates that the same project is feasible on the Dragonboard if the Arduino worked.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Sam got extremely good at using Firebase to store messages and then recieve them at another platform. Lorenzo learned to go through copious sparse documentation and gained a better understanding of how the WS2812 LEDs worked in a vain attempt to find a library that would allow the Dragonboard to communicate natively with the LEDs.

What we learned

We learned how to communicate between different devices using Firebase, which was a first for both of us. This was also our first time communicating between different programming languages or even different devices.

What's next for Google Home Visual Light Encoding

It would be ideal if we could get a Mezzanine board for the Dragonboard that allowed us to communicate with the LEDs directly from the Dragonboard. This would allow us to leave the Dragonboard in a headless state and so it would not need to be tethered to a computer.

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