QR Code Light

Projects
1

I have a cool job that lets me travel around the globe presenting at around twelve or so technology conferences a year. For the past few conferences, I’ve been giving a session that lets me change the background color of a web page, on any device viewing that web page, from a different web page (with color picker). I wanted the audience to participate, so I put a QR code on the screen for them to scan that takes them to said web page. Funny thing is, rarely did anybody scan the QR code.

I got to thinking about why it was that people never scanned it. It’s a cool interactive demonstration. Would you want to be involved? Perhaps you’re not going to go through the effort of breaking out your phone, launching your QR code application (if you have one installed) and scanning the code, unless you knew it was going to be worth it. And before the demonstration starts, you don’t really know if it is worth it. Or you know, QR codes could just be passe.

Anyways, I wondered what if the QR code was utilitarian and directed in nature? What if you needed to scan the QR code in order to do anything with a specific object? It is with that long story that I decided to create the QR Code Light.

The QR Code Light is effectively a sculpture of a QR code. The areas that we would normally think of as “black” are actually transparent. An RGB LED strip behind the QR code, illuminates the pattern.

Scanning the QR code takes you to a web page that allows you to control the color of the QR code lighting. When you click a color on the web page, JavaScript makes a call to a Parse.com Cloud Code module (could be PHP, I just don’t want to manage my own infrastructure) that in turn passes the selected RGB string to an Electric Imp. For now the Electric Imp sits atop an Arduino, and passes the RGB string along to the Arduino. The Arduino in turn communicates to a BlinkM MaxM Master, and changes the color of the light strip behind the QR code.

I’m looking to eliminate the Arduino bit in the future, but I’m not sure how to manage the 12V dependency that the RGB LED strip needs through the Imp alone. Ideally, there would just be an Imp, MaxM Master and an RGB LED strip on the inside, and a barrel jack and power switch on the outside. I’d like to run 12V in from the barrel jack, and to the a SparkFun Imp breakout board. That would power the Imp. But then I’d like to take the 12V from the breakout board and to the MaxM Master. While I know how to control a BlinkM/MaxM from an Imp (I2C), I’m not sure if I can just string along the power lines like that. Any guidance or feedback is welcome.

2

Have a look at the Quinn reference design; this will control two 12v LED strips from an imp…

3

Cool! I’m very interested in QR code too and I have tried some QR code product for a while. I have a QR code generator and a QR code reader on my phone. It’ll be perfect if those two functions are included in one APP.

4

I found QR codes useful for a talk I did on the IOT where I used Imp as a practical example, it allowed the attendees to get to the control web page without fiddling about typing a URL. Definitely reccomend sticking a QR code to any Imp project!

5

Hi there
I am a newbie for QR code.And i tried to scan QR code using this code:

`public static string FolderName = “c:/”;

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string fileName = FolderName + “SampleBarcode.tif”;

string[] datas = BarcodeScanner.Scan(fileName, BarcodeType.QRCode);

foreach (string data in datas)
{
    Debug.WriteLine(data);
}`

It is from google.But it can not work.What’s wrong with this code?Thanks a lot

edit: wrapped code in < code ></ code > tag