We took the giant Tetris board prototype and hung it in the front window at the space. Now we can have it display our scrolling marquee message “Welcome to Melbourne Makerspace” in various colors right up front where visitors can see it as they walk up or drive by. It’s currently on a simple timer to turn on during “evening hours” but we’re makers. So of course we are already planning how to improve it:
1. Make it use the magnetic door switch to turn on when we are there and have the inner door open.
2. Add something to the arduino that lets us update the message text on the fly, remotely, without having to reupload a new sketch with the new message.
Here’s a few pictures we took of it last night at our Public Night / Microcontroller Monday meeting.