Programing Code Assistance For Led Mouth on Ten Foot Costume

Hello,
So, I am very new to Arduino and have been sailing through the steps until now. I received serveral products sensors wires etc. yet, I have been stuck however on the Programming code.

A little background: I am building a costume for BlizzCon this year and it is a marauder. It will stand approx. 10 feet tall 6 feet wide and about 4 feet thick. This is a monster. I will be on mini stilts inside it and it will have Lights, Lasers, Speakers with voice, microphone, air powered grenade launcher etc. I have poured more than $5000 into this project and thus far this is the first time i've needed help. (Goes to show money cant be everything. lol) On top of these features I wanted the mouth to be a double stacked 20/20 - 20/20 led bar graph that will move to a noise sensor it has. I would like the sensors to move to scale like you might see on a boombox screen. I have received all the parts assembled it and quite frankly am confused with this coding. :cold_sweat:

So, I have attached the pic design of the project I am working on and all of the parts for the led bar graph... I have nearly built the entire thing and it looks awesome! Its made from fiberglass, bondo then vacuformed and painted. Just the final touches that makes the difference and I think Arduino is a key to the final touches.
I have the arduino R3, Grove Base shield, eight - 10 leds with wires as shown and a noise sensor with wire as shown.
The leds will be on numbers 2,3,4,5 and 8,9,10,11.
Then I had a question if the Grove base shield has a certain port the sensor has to plug into..?

I do hate to ask, but if anyone has the code or knows the code for this to work, and what to plug where, that would be awesome.
The best part is its all snap and play so there isn't much to the wiring part! :slight_smile:

Here is an expl. vid. please copy and paste in browser - StarCraft 2 - Marauder Quotes - YouTube

I think this would put my project over the top and any help would be so very much appreciated. Thank you

Hi jbuss,

Sounds like a great project!

I do hate to ask, but if anyone has the code or knows the code for this to work

Just a few thoughts...

  1. You'll need to be more specific about what you would like the Arduino to do. We'd like to help, but are not quite sure what you are trying to do.
  2. I doubt that anyone has created exactly what you are creating, so there won't be any code around for you to use. You'll have to write most of yourself, although there will likely be many examples you can copy.
  3. What programming experience do you have?

Pat.

Hey Pat,
Thank you for the response. I figured there would be a lot more to it! Well, I have extensive knowledge in building thing and mechanics yet I have to admit my knowledge of Programming is severely lacking. I understand the basics, but that is as far as it goes. I am constantly learning more and creating code by trial and error but none of success thus far.

I am just trying to create an Arduino LED Bar graph that has two 10 led together on top of two more that are together below it. so 4 on one side of the face and 4 on the other side of the face and the bar graph coincides with the sound sensor that is also attached. And the bar graph to light up from inwards to outwards. I apologize for not being more knowledgeable, Think I bit off more than I can Chew with the programming part of this project lol.
So, the YouTube link attached has the idea I want with the LED Bar Graph but I'm going to be using it with eight 10 LED devices as shown below. (Pretend the image is a head lol)
I guess I need the proper code to get the Led to function as it does in the video and with the sound sensor. Thank you and your help is appreciated.

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Can you describe the relationship between what the LED display does and the sound input ? Is the relationship based on the volume of the input, the frequency of the input or is it the fact that there is a voice input at all that causes the LED display to animate ?

Yes, the input For the Led Is to be based on voice and a speaker that will be on my shoulder. So the Idea is when I play the sound clips through the speakers the mouth moves and same when I talk. So I gues whether its volume or frequency as long as the mouth moves when those occur. And thank you for your help. XD

OK. It's time for you to get programming.
Try some of the examples in the Arduino IDE to get a feel for how a program goes together.

You are going to need to read from what you called the 'noise sensor' and when it exceeds a trigger level cause the LEDs to do something. What is this mysterious 'noise sensor' ? Do you have a link to it so that we can see what it is and what sort of signal that it is likely to output ?

Yea, I have started programming and still am, with little success. lol So, the sensor is actually labeled "Sound Sensor". It is a simple microphone sensor. Here is a link to the actual part... (Copy and Paste plz.) http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/grove-sound-sensor-p-752.html?cPath=144_148

Thanks again and if anyone has some tips that would be great...
At this point im willing to go as far as to purchase a programmers services for this code to be done... lol XD

Whoever programs this, be it you or someone else, is going to need to know what the output range of the microphone is when read by an Arduino analogue input so that the trigger level can be properly set. I note that according to the details in the link that you provided that the gain is adjustable but knowing the range of voltages output will be essential.

Do a forum search on "VU level".
You'll find some hits that will probably help you grab the audio level and put some value on it.
You then have to convert that to the 10 leds per bar, and send the same data out to all bars.
Seems like you're using seeedstudio as your source.
Their site tells there is a demo code for these bars, so fetch that and find out how to control the bargraph.

You don't need an Arduino for this... Just any LM3914/3915/3916 LED VU driver, and a small amplifier in front of it for the mic is all you need. Each LM39xx chip can handle 10 LEDs, and you can cascade them even if you need longer (20, 30 Leds, etc) .... or if you only need less than 10, then skip some of the output pins.