USB Disco Dance Floor

pi42 writes "Some MIT students built this USB controlled disco dance floor for their dorm lounge. It was built in a week, has 1536 LEDs, 20,000 hand-soldered connections, and is capable of displaying 12-bit color. Check out videos and photos." You can even send the floor an email, though it might not write back.

TAKE THAT CALTECH

[Electroly]

So while Caltech is traveling across the country to put up balloons, MIT students are building a kickass USB-controlled disco floor? I think we all know which school knows where it's at.

Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH

[Anonymous Coward]

Caltech enacts a series of amusing, though not all that great, pranks.

MIT responds by building a dance floor for a fad which hasn't been popular in 25 years.

Oh yeah. Geek fight!

Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH

[aichpvee]

It's time for some serious school to do what should have been done with this project in the first place: build it into a Dance Dance Revolution stage!

Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH

[The-Bus]

Everything old is new again.

That, or some people are very much out of touch. For example, have you seen the Pontiac TV ad which, for most of the ad, is just a screen from what looks to be the Geiss Winamp plugin? [geisswerks.com] I mean, it's probably meant to look hip but it made me think of 1998, the last time anyone thought those were cool.

Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH

[zeath]

I thought it more closely resembled the Flurry screensaver (as seen on various platforms, by default on OS X), with the exception that Flurry doesn't oscillate with music. Perhaps a combination of Geiss and Flurry.

Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

MIT responds by building a dance floor for a fad which hasn't been popular in 25 years.

At least they aren't wearing Jordache jeans (or Toughskins for that matter).

I wonder how that floor would hold up to roller skates. I suppose we'll never know considering the people involved. Geeks always had the chance to leave the rink before the rest of the crowd because of the final Couple's Skate.

Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH

[mr_tommy]

HA! And they were so smug with those balloons....

Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH

[Hinhule]

Geeks - dancefloor

Hmmm...

Geeks - Internet

More probable...

Geeks - Internet - webcams

Uh oh...

Geeks - Dancefloor - webcams

I think we have found the reason they made this, they added webcams and light to the floor. Getting a limitless supply of upskirt shots. ;P

Re:Bare feet

[carpe_noctem]

Who says that just your feet have to be uncovered?

Maybe this isn't a "design limitation" so much as a clever trap, eh?

Disco Stu

[derphilipp]

Disco Stu likes to go down with the boogie! Reminds me of Leisure Suit Larry 1....

And they STILL can't dance

[joelethan]

We geeks should give up now.

The girls always go for John Travolta, not Poindexter

/joelethan
Do a little dance, make a little love - get down tonight!

Re:And they STILL can't dance

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what they don't say is the Disco floor will light rhythmically to DDR steps, allowing even the REALLY geeky to appear as though they have a mild amount of dancing talent!

Re:And they STILL can't dance

[Adrilla]

If you think DDR is dancing, maybe you should stay off all dance floors completely.

Re:And they STILL can't dance

[FleaPlus]

Actually, DDR experience came quite handy when later on I started learning things like swing dancing.

Re:And they STILL can't dance

[adamfranco]

Actually, DDR experience came quite handy when later on I started learning things like swing dancing.

Speaking of swing dancing and DDR, Manu Smith [920special.com] has apparently reprogrammed his DDR to do Lindy/Charleston/etc steps. I've not seen it personally as my legs have always been too dead, but he brought it to Swing Out New Hampshire the past few years.

Re:And they STILL can't dance

[Pointdexter]

The girls always go for John Travolta, not Poindexter

;-(

Re:Neo?

[Adrilla]

They go for Neo though, didn't they? Almost every girl I know like "The Matrix" movie because of him.

They go for 'Movie Star, Keanu Reeves', not, 'Hacker, Neo'.

Re:Neo?

[timster]

Heck, I couldn't hack my way out of a cold either! That's one badass virus, conditioned over millions of years. I'm glad I've got an advanced defense system which is a lot smarter than I am about such matters.

wow

[TheKidWho]

that is really awesome, they should sell some of those things :-D I would love one of those in my house with some touch sensors too so the floor can light up when I walk on it!

Re:wow

[martingunnarsson]

They have a simple touch sensor under every tile, RTFA.

Re:wow

[goat_attack]

call up these guys: http://www.lightspace.biz/

Bus powered?

[godal]

does it draw power from the usb bus or does it require an external power supply?

Disco is dead

[thedogcow]

Screw that disco crap. I can see a better use for it.

A Giant Tetris Board. Think of it. You've got the grid-like squares that Tetris has.

Re:Disco is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

How about (very low-resolution) DivX movies on the floor?

That way we nerds can brag about having sex on the floor every night... :)

Re:Disco is dead

[Spunk]

One word: goatse.

Re:Disco is dead

[zwei2stein]

Hey, combine it with DDR and you have one hell of an excercise on Level 10

low-res...

[Cryptnotic]

The resolution was 16x32. Also, I wonder what the refresh rate is like. The page is a bit short on details.

Re:low-res...

[PeDRoRist]

It says 30 FPS (and 4096 colors) on the front page.

Re:Disco is dead

[Mhtsos]

There's been a bigger one though [blinkenlights.de] so it's not as cool.

Re:Disco is dead

[ninjagin]

It's already been done on much larger scales.

See: http://www.blinkenlights.de/

MIT parties are interesting

[Dancin_Santa]

I had the opportunity to go to several parties in Boston a few years back. A couple at Harvard and a couple at MIT and a couple near BU. Needless to say, the quality of the parties was inversely proportional to the U.S. News and World Report rankings of these schools. Not to take anything away from the homely girls and stereotypical MIT men, but MIT parties were only slightly better than the Harvard parties in terms of fun. However, Harvard edged out MIT in terms of attractive women (much to Mrs. Claus' chagrin).

Boston U had the best combination of attractive women and fun parties, though the "talent" pool in Boston left much to be desired.

What would be nice is to have this floor shipped over to Caltech or CMU where the attractive and successful Californians can take full advantage of it. The MIT geeks can still control the floor remotely from their dorms in Boston.

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[wan-fu]

CMU is in Pittsburgh unless you mean their west coast extension, in which case, there are just a bunch of unattractive Ph.D. students hanging out there. Caltech has even fewer women than MIT and they are also less attractive (yes, this sounds impossible, but it's true). In summary, while many Californians are attractive, they are not at Caltech or CMU.

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[123abc987]

Well, of COURSE Ph.D. women are ugly. Only women who can't get an MRS degree go for Ph.D's. Goodness knows there's no point in actually educating pretty women, they're just around for impregnating.

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[Gondola]

I can't believe that was modded Insightful.

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[drewzhrodague]

I ignore the attractiveness of people at parties (with limited exceptions), and focus more on the social aspects. As an avid partygoer living in Pittsburgh -- two guys and half a case of lite beer just doesn't cut it for me. I'll have to investigate CMU a bit more, though the people that stand out are rather mediocre.

Getting laid at MIT

[plimsoll]

The odds are good, but the goods are odd.

Re:Getting laid at MIT

[FleaPlus]

When I was at CMU, that's what the CS girls often said about the CS guys. Another saying goes: "Women at MIT/Caltech/CMU are like parking spaces. They're all either taken or handicapped."

I actually disagree with the saying myself, but it's certainly amusing.

Re:Getting laid at MIT

[wsloand]

At Georgia Tech, while the girls said that about the guys, I would say about the girls: "Good from afar, but far from good."

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[Somnus]

MIT has really gone down hill on this front since the late 80s (link [http]). I caught the tail end before that Krueger kid drank himself to death in '98. Since then, the administration has leveraged the event to change the student landscape: more "well-rounded" admittees, tighter alcohol controls, and less housing choice -- a more Ivy League-like model. I think it's a shame ... you can fix the problems (e.g., real-world competence) without making MIT less distinctive and fun. As a prelude to my graduate education, MIT was perfect.

As for the women, those at MIT were fit, sharp, non-skanky, and often quite beautiful -- no other campus I've visited/attended matches up. (De gustibus non disputandum, etc.)

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[avi33]

As for the women, those at MIT were fit, sharp, non-skanky, and often quite beautiful

All 4 of them?

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[hey!]

When I was at MIT at the start of the 80s, somebody did a study that showed that the whole "well-rounded" thing had been going in cycles for decades. Admissions would look around and realize the student body was dull as hell, and say "Oh my God, we need to admit more well rounded students." Soon academic failure rates would start to climb as the creative, well rounded types were distracted from the academic grind by creative and well rounded activities. Then they'd say, "Oh my God, we need to admit more

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[drewzhrodague]

Yah, definately fun parties from the local crews in Boston. At first I described them as something Wired would have reported on, and discussing how the technology comes into play with the party scene. Looking back, most of the parties I had been to were stuff I saw firsthand which, when described to people here in Pittsburgh -- I get blank stares. Frostbyte and Carl's many LED projects totally blow my mind, and inspire me. I look forward to my next ASCII-art invite!

Re:MIT parties are interesting

[avi33]

I concur, the MIT parties I went to were comically stereotypical. They had some really cool experiments set up throughout the house (mostly assembled from stolen lab equipment) but the guys themselves were beyond socially inept. I got along fine with them, but if you brought women into the room, they became retarded.

I arrived at a party once with two fine women, and most of them were incapable of assembling a conversation within three feet of us. Rather, they perched in nearby positions and began talking R

Wow! Just imagine..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!

*ponder*

[Duncan3]

MIT... dancefloor...

There is a joke in there somewhere, I just know it.

Re:*ponder*

[jay-be-em]

So your friend putting up a bunch of xmas light strings in shapes with different timers is more impressive than a usb controlled _programmable_ disco floor with 20k hand soldered connections?

No. It isn't.

If only

[dark grep]

If only I had thought of that 20 years ago when disco was 'in' and I was a uni (college if you live in the US). There may have been some chance of spending nights with a real girl in stead of a cold, cold terminal. On the other hand. Probably not.

Re:If only

[gl4ss]

nowadays we use pc's.. they're not so cold anymore you know.

Looks great but...

[obsol33t]

I think that those MIT kids need some dance lessons.

Wow with all that hand crafted soldering

[Timesprout]

I bet they are having to beat hot babes off the dance floor now to make sure all the hotties get a fair chance to show their goodies.

DDR

[Ailure]

Anyone else starting to think on DDR with a big dancefloor instead of a tiny dancemat? With all thoose touch sensors...

Re:DDR

[Gruneun]

It's quite apparent that geeks can do the Electric Slide in large groups without any new technology.

There's only one style of dance for geeks...

[datafr0g]

The Robot! old skool geeks, word to ya mammas

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Tetris (and other ideas)

[FleaPlus]

Any bets on how long until a Tetris clone is implemented for this?

Apparently the panels also have pressure sensors on them -- that's so cool. It sounds they have the hardware they need for an awesome game of massively-multiplayer Twister or Mosh Mosh Revolution [megatokyo.com]. Variants of pinball, pong, or arkanoid could also be fun, with virtual paddles drawn wherever there were two nearby pressure points (i.e. feet).

Re:Tetris (and other ideas)

[LiquidCoooled]

Play twister, but have the colored points move around to your advantage.

No more stretching and trying to make yourself uncomfy. Just make sure you always have a nearby color.

But hey lookee here, the gals have to have one foot here, and stretch the other wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy over there.

Mit students are too cool for skool.

hmmm...

[Anubis350]

I see this, sitting in my dorm room at 4:30AM and I say to myself, wow, if I were more productive I'd be building something like this instead of reading slashdot. Then I realize that I'm lazy and stop this line of inquiry before it makes me want to actually get up and do something, maybe next week......

Re:hmmm...

[Anubis350]

yeah, getting there :-P Actually, laziness aside, I will be building stuff soon (a carboard and duct-tape boat for a race on campus for one). But for now I'm being lazy and putting off studying/paper writing.

Vertigo?

[op12]

How long do you think you could stare at the floor before falling over/vomiting/having a seizure? I'm going with 15 minutes.

Re:Vertigo?

[syzler]

Dude, was something in the punch, because I think the floor is spinning and changing colors.

Re:Vertigo?

[gl4ss]

* I would not like to be anywhere near that floor were I an epileptic.*

if you were epilectic... wtf were you doing in a disco anyways? the floor is pretty tame compared to some stuff in discos.

Pressure Sensors?

[Mage Powers]

what are they for? Construction and FAQ didn't mention, and I'm too young to have caught the disco era...

I so want to build one of these

nice work boys, but...

[mezzman]

...someone else beat you to it:
http://www.lightspace.biz/

Re:nice work boys, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

except theirs cost about 30 grand for this size. This cost $2500.

Re:nice work boys, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Lightspace(TM) patent pending technology"...

Whoops. :P

Notes:

[Omkar]

1. Funny how the average distance between dancers was like 5ft. 2. Pressure sensors => Tetris where you tap to rotate, and have to run and follow you piece down.

Wow..

[teamhasnoi]

Seeing cool stuff like that makes me wish I was smart.

Well, back to studying for my Caltech entrance exams.

Anyone here know how to blow up a baboon?

Re:Wow..

[gstoddart]

Well, back to studying for my Caltech entrance exams.

Anyone here know how to blow up a baboon?

The small emergency valve just below its waist and a six pack of beer.

It's cool, and sturdy!

[AndyChrist]

Seriously, I saw one girl in there who was apparantly there to test the floor's durability.

If only

[octal666]

they had chicks to dance with...

Another one in process

[mecanicaz]

We thought here of making something similar that even mimics the "Dance Dance Revolution" machine that you find in video arcades, haven't figured out how to sense the pressure though, any ideas?

Re:Another one in process

[Anonymous Coward]

The sensors on this floor are bare wirecoils seperated with a few layers of plastic wrap. The resistance of the wrap drops dramatically under heavy pressure, but this was found out by simply experimenting with handy materials. See if you can find something better and more reliable (though you probably won't find anything cheaper!)

Re:Another one in process

[dubbreak]

Depends if you want to detect pressure or just a depression (that the foot is down).. for ddr all you need to know is that a square is depressed in which case you can just have two contacts that are seperated then contact, therefore completing a circuit (most homemade ddr pads use weather stripping to hold the contacts appart).

This summer I'm making my own dance pad, A little googling on the subject will give you lots of good hits on people who have already done this.

If you want to detect ressure use F

They're engineers all right

[MotorMachineMercenar]

As you can see on the video, the floor surface was thoroughly stress-tested by a 300-pound hippopotamus on high heels doing the macarena.

800x600 version

[Edward Teach]

I want one but man, soldering 1,444,000 led's would be a bit tiring.

Re:800x600 version

[l3v1]

Heck, make the floow some heavy plexy or something and project the stuff unto it from below with a good ol' projector :P

In other news...

[dark-br]

... MIT's giant usb controlled disco dance floor hacked now scrolling "C A L T E C H"

Trailblazer from the C64 - got to be done!

[chiark]

Anyone else remember trailblazer from the Commodore 64???? This would be a superb platform to implement the game concept on.

What's the return policy for dead pixels...

[sxsnyc]

and...who's writing the firmware update and driver so I can hook up my PSP to this thing?

Woohoooo!

[ayjay29]

The First East Disco Dance Floor

1,536 LEDs
128 square feet
4,096 colors
30 frames/second
20,000 hand-soldered connections
100+ Nerds
Zero chicks ...best parties ever! (I think not...)

I hope they did the obvious thing

[Illserve]

There should be touch sensors in there so that they can play Missile Command with their feet.

Bah ...

[hotspotbloc]

Bexley had the same thing 20 years ago and that one was controlled with your mind! Man, I miss their parties. Sorry, what were we talking about?

My first thought was

[artifex2004]

Next year, they should build a larger version for the outside of their dorm and act as a light&sound organ, like the control building [216.157.131.103] at the top of Devil's Tower [vulkaner.no] in Close Encounters [imdb.com].

Then they can use it to tell mom & dad they're homesick, and will they come pick them up for a short visit? [imdb.com]

ping dancefloor

[hughk]

% ping dancefloor.mit.edu

Pinging 172.74.99.17 with 32 bytes of data
Reply from 172.74.99.17 bytes=32 time=100ms

Node 172.19.15.17 is staying alive!

Apologies!

Re:ping dancefloor

[Loconut1389]

Of course it's stayin' alive! It will continue to do so as well. My disco bible says so!

At first I was afraid; I was petrified,
...
D' you Think I'd crumble, you think I'd lay down and die?
No, not I, I will survive...oh as long as I know how to love,
I know I am still alive.
I got all my life to live, and I got all my love to give,
I will survive, hey hey!

Coral Cache

[fsterman]

Hey, I remember when this first came out it was always on /.'s And it never seems to work!

Programming contests...

[mikael]

I look forward to seeing the programming contests for this.

Real-time exploration of the Mandelbrot set using footprint movements as an input device.

Reaction Diffusion equations to give that rippling water effect as someone walks along.

Real-time display of a Voronoi diagram based on the location of users.

this is the best

[jessecurry]

this is the best disco dance floor I've seen in over 25 years....well....it's the only disco dance floor I've seen in over 25 years

Want one!

[Tom]

I want one!

Maybe not as a dance floor, but as a regular floor. Imagine the stuff you can do if you can make your floor any colour, any pattern, whenever you feel like it...

Then again, reading's a bitch when the light comes from below. Damn.

Some clarifications and notes

[asoko]

I can't claim that I was a major player, but I did help with the driver and some visualizations for this thing. Just to clarify:

• The emails you send do not get displayed on the floor, in case you were wondering. Ddf is just the email list.
• The people dancing in the video are not at a party, but members of a theater group that were recuited after their performance to shoot the video. At parties it's much groovier.
• The tiles on the floor can be controlled in real time, and by either a standalone program or an XMMS plugin (a spectrum analyzer is working as of recently) And yes, it should be relatively trivial to program tetris for it, though it hasn't been done yet.
• Our inspirational song is "Work it" by Daft Punk.

Aaron S.

What are you going to do today, Napoleon?

[Jakeypants]

"Build a USB dance floor, gosh!" [mit.edu]

DEAD PIXELS

[pmancini]

Hmmm, given a lot of geeks are the most svelt people in the world I wonder if the floor gets dead pixels when they play "Jump Around!" and other similar songs?

At least dead pixels on this display are easier to fix! Just throw in the guy that solders with his feet!

--Pete

Okay. That was cool. Up until...

[blair1q]

...I actually saw the pictures... ...and then the movies... ...and then the movies of MIT students "dancing" on it... ...and then what an MIT soldering-iron jockey's idea of film editing meant... ...I'd say "they must've sniffed too many flux fumes," but no, that's not going to be what caused this...

Re:well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave: Almighty Disco Floor, mayhaps you can give us the laying?
Disco Floor: Sorry Dave, I can't do that.

Re:Brilliant Work....but.

[thebudgie]

What? There was nothing slim about them!

Re:Email for the DDF

[Big Mark]

Yeah man that'd be a TOTALLY original thing to do!

Re:Laser?

[FleaPlus]

How so? Lasers generally don't go through bodies very well. Maybe if you had a laser shining from below and had a translucent dance floor, but that actually seems more difficult than just using LEDs.

Actually, I suppose maybe the lasers could go through bodies, but then you'd have other problems to deal with.

Re:Napoleon Dynamite?

[Carewolf]

Wow. You are right!

I just saw that movie last week on a movie festival. I am hardly surprised if turns out to be semi-authentic ;)

Re:Music in the video

[Ice Tiger]

I thought I was watching an Amiga demo.

Re:Marketable idea

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

> I'm sure this technology could be marketable to some night clubs.
Very [lightspace.biz].