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These microcontroller based fireflies are cool. At first I thought they simply started to flash when the lights turned off but they actually are able to detect the flashes of their neighbors and sync themselves! "What can be observed is that the fireflies start with random blinking. But as time goes by, they are able to slowly synchronize with their nearest neighbors. And these neighbors are synchronizing themselfes with their neighbors and so on an so on. Until the whole tree or the whole valley blinks in the same cycle. And what is it good for? It is used to attract other specimen. With all the blinking in sync it is much easier to find a partner. One of the easiest algorithm to explain this behaviour goes like this: You have a value that holds the power to flash. As time passes this power will slightly raise. If the power reaches a certain level, the firefly flashes and the power is consumed. The rate at which the power raises is nearly the same for all fireflies. So they have the same frequency but not the same point in time to flash. While slowly charging with power the firefly is able to detect a flash of another firefly nearby. It adds then a higher value to its power value. Some kind of power boost, if you wish. That means the next flash will occur earlier than the one before. And next one even earlier, until these two are flashing exactly at the same point in time and with the same speed."
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August 11th, 2008
[...] (via) Read More LED Cape Would Fit Dracula WellDIY: Make your own GPS cellular rotary phonePac-Mac [...]
August 11th, 2008
Hi Alan,
if you liked my instructable, you may want to have a look at Fireflies NG, which I did some days ago. It’s basically the same circuit, but every firefly sits on its own PCB.
http://tinkerlog.com/2008/07/27/synchronizing-fireflies-ng/
Cheers,
Alex
August 11th, 2008
You guys always have the most useless creative stuff…lol. and that’s what I love! I’m addicted to Hackedgadgets!
August 12th, 2008
@Multiple Monitors: yeah sometimes pretty useless stuff but as you said: i’m pretty addicted, too!
hackedgadgets is great!
August 12th, 2008
[...] is a new version of the Firefly that was featured yesterday. The new version was built on a manufactured PCB and looks very good! Full build details are [...]
August 13th, 2008
[...] bu arkadaşlardan bir kaç tane yaptığınız zaman kendi aralarında senkronize olarak yanıp sönebiliyorlarmış. Bu sistemin çalışma mekanizması gerçek sineklerin senkronizasyonundan esinlenilmiş. hmmm… kaynak [...]
August 15th, 2008
I like the other one better. This one is cool though.