What is A-Cube

A-Cube (Short for Arta-Cube) was bilt as an interactive Art / Tech / Communication project for my girlfriend and I while we are in a long distance relationship. A-Cube was initially designed as a one-way display cube where I could send messages to get displayed remotely at my girlfriends dorm across the country. The initial problem with this idea was the fact that her University has 802.1x for wifi, and I have no easy way to remotely authenticate and connect to WiFi. Eventually A-Cube became a 2-way communication cube.

Overview

I have been working on a few projects that are using RaspberryPis to control large Neopixel LED matrixes so I am familiar with working with the two together. For this I decided to go with 3 8x8 matrixes and a RaspberryPi Zero W. (The RaspberryPi Zero is a little bit underpowered but will explain later)

Parts

  • 3 x LED Matrix
  • 1 x RaspberryPi Zero W
  • 1 x Hologram Nova
  • 1 x Button / Vibration Sensor
  • 6 x PWM Cables
  • 1 x 90 Degree USB Adapter Pack
  • 1 x Power Adaptor
  • 1 x Power Cable
  • Pin Headers

Code and 3D Models

Github - All code is in my A-Cube repo.

Hologram.io - Hologram IoT Cellular/LTE Service Provider