Interactive RGB LED Matrix, Controlled by Twitch Chat.

In this video you can see the LED matrix contolled by other people.

I hang the matrix on a wall, point a camera on it and stream it on Twitch.

The people watching my stream on Twitch can type commands in the chat. (for example !001 red)

With these commands they can give every pixel the color they want.

This makes the matrix an ever changing canvas on my wall :) (if it's online)

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This instructable is about the idea, what the state is now, and how it came to be.

It's still a work in progress!

Step 1: It All Started With Ordering LEDs

On the internet i came across some very nice LEDs.

Type WS2812B, addressable RGB LEDs with build in controller chip, so i bought some :)

After they arrived i started doing some experiments,

I used the fastled arduino library to write programs: Fastled library

I can really recommend this library, it makes life a lot easier!

A lot of example programs can be found on this site.

Step 2: Building the Led Matrix

After a lot of testing with the Ws2812B LEDs, I decided to build a wooden 10x10 grid to put the LEDs in.

You can do this in many different ways, other materials, bigger or smaller,...

In this video u can see the steps i took to make the grid, how i placed the leds and wires,

and in the end some initial testing.

I'm no expert in woodworking and don't have the right tools, but I think it turned out OK.

Also using a LED strip would be easier, i had to strip and solder a lot of wires!

Step 3: What to Do With It...

Finally, my RGB LED matrix was working,

but what do you use it for?

Inspired by other matrix projects here on Instructables,

I started working on more complex arduino programs.

Again using the Fastled library, there is really good support for matrix layouts.

After a lot of testing, looking how other people solved their problems, adding more and more code, adding a bluetooth module and writing my own app.

I didn't really know what to add more and the project was gathering dust in a corner for a while.

(For building an app, i really can recommend MIT App Invetor 2 I never made one before but with this it's easy!)

Step 4: Why Not Make It Interactive?

After some time had passed, I started looking to give the matrix a new use.

As a long time Twitch user, and inspired by "Twitch plays pokemon",

I was thinking, why not make this matrix interactive?? And let people from all over the world use it.

And so it went.

The idea was to read Twitch IRC chat with a Python script,

let it do some magic if it sees a pre-defined command, and send the correct info to the arduino

which in turn controls the LEDs in the matrix.

I started really simpel as u can see in the 2 videos.

First only one led on/off

Then changing the colors

And after that the full matrix (the video on top of this instructable.)

It is still a work in progress, more commands and functions will be added.

Even I do not know when and if it will be ever finished. :-)