LED toys have become synonymous with the underground rave culture as party-goers gaze into vortexes of spinning light known as poi. Most of these objects come pre-programmed, but some can be custom coded. However, only a few tap into an accelerometer changing the colorful circles of energy depending on how fast they move through space. One stunning example is this LED device called the ‘Center Flee’ that translates accelerometer data into sequences of alternating RGB colors.
The LED values are ‘printed’ to the tethered objects at specific points in the rotational arc. The devices are controlled with an Arduino, and a XBee wireless module transmits data to a computer nearby, eliminating the need to manually remove an SD card after each spinning session.
When spun, the poi acts like a colorful, twirling extension of the performer that produces a mesmerizing, vibrant effect. It’s nice to see the progression of glow sticks tied to shoelaces into g-force sensing devices that can captivate surrounding audiences.
Other examples of similar types of ideas include this accelerometer poi that was cut with a CNC machine and these LED staffs for the ultimate portable rave.
Below is a video playlist of the Center Flee being tested out.
Wow those look great! She’s an impressive spinner too, those are some tough moves. It’s great to see this style of performance art gaining so much popularity lately! Thanks for sharing this.
Oh, that poi. I thought of this poi when I saw the headline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poi_(food)
I suppose if you could accelerate a bowl of it fast enough it would change color due to redshift… or blueshift if it was thrown at you.
You’d have bigger problems than doppler shift at those speeds. More along the lines of what-if.xkcd.com/1
Actually it’s roots are Maori – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poi_(performance_art)
Those look great and I know how hard it is to capture LED stuff on video so I am sure it looks even better in real life.
I haven’t started working on making my LED juggling balls suitable for spinning yet but it is a similar project. I used accelerometers and NRF24L01 modules to communicate to a central arduino that has a bluetooth module so you can control them using an Android app.
With summer coming to an end I hope to start working on them soon again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMix5ZxQXCQ