Worldwide Network of Lights: CheerLights Turns 10

I released CheerLights 10 years ago! I introduced the project to HackPGH makerspace in Pittsburgh, PA. I was lucky to recruit a couple of people to build their own light displays and they linked their lights to mine. I started getting the word out more and more people joined the project and the big moment was when Matt Richardson wrote an article on the MAKE Magazine website. CheerLights really took off after Matt’s story!

First Set of CheerLights at HackPGH

The idea behind CheerLights is that you take a light that can change color and keep all of the lights synchronized with each no matter where they are located. So, if my light turns red, the rest of the interconnected lights also turn red. The mechanism to control the lights around the world is Twitter. A tweet to @CheerLights along with mentioning a color will set the color of the lights. This opens up the control to virtually anyone one around the world.

CheerLights – Synchronized Lights Around the World

Some Inspiration

How Can You Help?

We are always looking for new people to join CheerLights. You don’t have to be a hardware expert to take part. Your ideas and your energy to get the word out are also very helpful.

Thanks to the Community

I would like to offer a special thanks to Andy Leer from that HackPGH night, Matt Richardson for jumpstarting this project and to Andy Stanford-Clark for your continued support and promotion of the project! And, a big thanks to the community. I love seeing people learn IoT, hardware, Arduino, and programming with the CheerLights project. I also love to see the creative way people join CheerLights. Thank you!

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