Triggering a Rickroll on a Photon with a QR Code (#IoT)

Over the past couple of days, there has been a lot of news circulating about security issues present in gadgets connected to the Internet of Things.  Keeping that in mind, I'm cautiously continuing my experimentation with the Photon, trying to be mindful of the fact that there are privacy risks involved in transforming ordinary objects into smart objects.

Thinking about ways that music might contribute to the creation of an interactive book that I'm going to be creating, I started tinkering with the code from Spark Fun's Music Time tutorial that plays Rick Astley's song "Never Going to Give You Up."  I tweaked the code by creating a new Particle function that only plays the music when the function is triggered by a web call.  I used the Maker Channel on If Then Than That to trigger it and linked it to a QR code (see previous post).

Even though electronic buzzer music can be a little annoying, I'm thinking that it would be interesting if QR codes embedded into a book could trigger different tunes or sound effects to help advance a narrative. 

Lily Pad Coding Day 2: My Music and Lights are in Sync!

The video below might not look like much, but I spent nearly all day today getting my Lily Pad to sync up with flashing green and red lights!

Here is a link to the code that I used, which is a combination of the music I coded last week (see previous post) and someone else's code for the lights.

The biggest problem that I am having at the moment is that there is a long pause at the end of the song and a couple of lights are flashing for reasons I cannot figure out.

My next step is to figure out how to get the music to turn on with a temperature sensor.

Baby, It's Cold Outside (LilyPad style)

   by  sameerhalai 

In a previous post, I shared the first musical composition that I coded for my LilyPad, a lullaby that I used to sing to my daughter.  Over the weekend, I sat down and started coding the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside," to get myself in the holiday spirit!  I used this frequency chart to match the notes on the sheet music.  Ideally, I'd like to create a scarf that plays this song and flashes multicolored lights when the temperature dips.

I haven't yet figured out how to program lights to flash in sync with my music, but that is next on my list.  Here is the code that I wrote.

The video is less than thrilling, but you can hear how my song is progressing.  I would appreciate any feedback you might have.