Hack Your Holiday Decorations 48
jfruhlinger writes "Tired of your code only executing in digital space? Why not hack your smiling snowman? OK, this crash course only shows you how to make pretty LED lights blink in a sequence of your choosing, but it serves to introduce you to Arduino, an open-source platform that uses C-like code. Really, any project that involves a soldering iron is good fun."
Amazing Capability (Score:2, Informative)
Flashing LEDs are frequently the "application" cited for Arduino. But it is FAR more capable than that. For instance, Arduinos are used as the processor for the Arducopter [google.com] autopilot system for multirotor remote controlled aircraft.
Re:use a 555 and a shift register (Score:5, Informative)
The summary sucks.
It's actually a singing, blinking snowman that goes off when you come close. And the LEDs are animated by the sound signal strength, so it's blinking along to whichever tune you have stored on the SD card...
Looks like a fun project for a beginner.