Comments on: Synchronizing Fireflies NG

By: stig Skjelvik

stig Skjelvik — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:06:10 +0000

great work! very similar with a old project of mine tested in 2005, used only white light and only built three functioning individuals... would be great to see a really large flock in action :)

please se link for more details..http://skjelvik.com/portefolie/experimental1.1.html

By: Lenny

Lenny — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:24:42 +0000

I like this hack. my girlfriend says…
“Its kind of romantic..when the two fireflies are together there synchronized and when there apart its like there lost”

By: Ian Calvert

Ian Calvert — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:25:35 +0000

I like, but I'm unsure as to the biological plausibility of the setup. Making the firefly flash *sooner* seems quite tricky since afaik they just flash as soon as they have built up enough *insert what they build up here*.

Sorry it's been a while since I studied them :)

I have coded a few and the biological idea we based them on was that when a firefly sees a lot of light it resets its cycle without flashing. This works extremely well, though causes some interesting interactions.

@bill it is used to synchronize amorphous collections of clocks on small distributed systems.

@dandin1 you could leave them listening in for just the power of broadcast at any one time, that should only take a very low powered circuit.

By: dandin1

dandin1 — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:07:03 +0000

@bill But wouldn’t the radios need to be always listening to be able to tell when the other radios went on/how “satisfied” they are at the synch?

By: andre

andre — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:33:51 +0000

this is pretty neat. btw you can get ldr's from broken road light pcbs :)

if you can't get the correct diodes its possible to make a tripad arrangement with RGB 3mm LED's, and it should still work.

i like the ldr-under-led trick, its pretty ingenious.

-A

By: Edward Nardella

Edward Nardella — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:45:56 +0000

This could also make for some interesting lighting setups, perhaps instead of trying to sync they are all always on between 50%-100% changing color, trying to get to each others color, I can imagine about 320 on a ceiling, no only responding to the color and intensity of nearby units but to the sounds being made in the room. I can imagine clapping could have a very rapid ripple like effect in bigger rooms, and if people get angry and start shouting then everything goes bright red.

Dude sometimes I wish I had the skills and patience to implement something like that.

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:10:44 +0000

Or you could skip lights altogether and use radio in a wireless sensor mesh type application, leave the radios off most of the time, power them on in unison once in a while to talk, using this to synchronize it.

By: Inkwina

Inkwina — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:21:26 +0000

This is a beautiful hack, both aesthetically and technically. I wonder whether this technology can be used to make the battery powered warning lights at roadworks flash if a running lights sort of fashion rather than disturbing random patterns

By: TheBlunderbuss

TheBlunderbuss — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:45:55 +0000

There’s something about this hack that is really appealing to me.