The Centipede Shield is all about expanding the capabilities of microcontrollers like the Arduino Uno by adding 64 additional i/o pins (per shield). It’s always fun to see what cool projects hackers come up with when given the extra possibilities.
Check out this awesome LED Table project that Leon Nicklas completed as part of a year-long school project. He uses an Arduino Uno with two Centipede Shields as the brain of his project. Connected to the Arduino are 100 separate circuit boards containing infrared LEDs, infrared sensors, and a WS2812 RGB-LED board. Each board is placed in a separate plywood box under the plexiglass tabletop.
The resulting functionality is that when a hand (or other infrared-reflecting surface) is placed above one of the sensors, the IR light is reflected back to the sensor and tells the table to switch the RGB LED color to the next in the series.
This is a really fun project and we’re honored to have the Centipede Shield featured in it. Be sure to check out Leon’s full project notes and his project trailer below.
For more technical documentation for the Centipede Shield, check out the specs here and if you can order them here.