When designing this practice MP3 participant for his grandson, [Luc Brun] bumped into a novel drawback. He wished the boy to have the ability to function the participant on his personal, however being solely 2½ years outdated, the consumer interface must be exceedingly easy. Too many buttons would simply be a distraction, and a show with textual content could be meaningless at his age.
Ultimately, [Luc] got here up with a really attention-grabbing approach of navigating by means of directories filled with MP3 recordsdata utilizing a couple of push buttons and a hoop of WS2812 LEDs. The colour of the LEDs point out which listing or class is at the moment being chosen: spoken nursery rhymes are crimson, music is orange, nature sounds are yellow, and so forth. The variety of LEDs lit point out which file is chosen, so in different phrases, three orange LEDs will point out the third music monitor.
At his grandson’s age, we think about not less than a bit little bit of him navigating by means of this technique is simply luck. However as he will get older, he’ll begin to kind extra stable connections between what he’s listening to and the colour and variety of the LEDs. So not solely is that this interface a approach to assist him function the gadget himself, however it might function a priceless studying device in these early life.
Alternatively, in case your aim is simply to distract a teenager for so long as attainable, an awesome variety of LEDs, buttons, and switches may be precisely what you need.
