Timekeeping sequence tracking all DUI crashes in the USA.
The task is to use digital controllers and LEDS (strips, pixels, rgb/w, single color), and create a sequence of lights with LEDs with just a microcontroller or other hardware. Explore an algorithm and the story you’re trying to tell with the lights. Make this so it is not ‘interactive’ but so it runs without human intervention.
Personally I went through a horrible turn of events this week in September of 2024.
My sister, niece and her friend were headed to Hersheypark’s Halloween Horror Nights just after dusk. This trip is max 3 miles, not far. On that journey a drunk driver ran a stop sign and t-boned their car, knocking their car over and causing serious injuries. They will heal to a new normal, but are forever changed; my family is grateful it is not worst, but enraged that a stranger making horrible choices can lead to destroying another strangers life.
In the United States we have ~13,000 fatalities a year due to drunk drivers, about 1/4 of how many people die from gun violence (~43,000). This is usually what the news focuses on, but there is a far larger problem, and now my family is included in this preventative statistic:
//The average number of DUI-related accidents (both fatal and non-fatal)
//in the United States is significant. According to data, there are over
//300,000 incidents of drinking and driving every day. However, of these,
//about 3,200 result in crashes, and around 800 people are injured
//daily in these accidents.
// This means that on average, there are approximately
//133 DUI-related accidents per hour across the country.
I took this moment to reflect on how light could tell this story on behalf of all victims of senseless injury. I am using LEDs in sequence to signify the passing of cars ,or fates, across an intersecting position. These seemingly unrelated light patters purposely do not collide - until 27 seconds. Every 27 seconds, on average, a DUI car accident occurs (injury or not) according to the US Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
I setup an Arduino device connected to 15 different circuits. 7 Green lights in a line, and 7 yellow LEDs in a line. The 15th circuit is using an RGB LED. To get them to work in sequence with the RGB took a few lines of code to delay lights based on a set rate and also include the rgb led as well.
The algorithm of this code can be broken down into a series of steps or phases that describe its behavior: