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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.

18 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. TAKE THAT CALTECH by Electroly · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      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!

    2. Re:TAKE THAT CALTECH by Hinhule · · Score: 5, Funny

      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

  2. Disco is dead by thedogcow · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
    1. Re:Disco is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

  3. MIT parties are interesting by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  4. Wow! Just imagine.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!

  5. Wow.. by teamhasnoi · · Score: 5, Funny
    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?

  6. Re:Vertigo? by syzler · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  7. It's cool, and sturdy! by AndyChrist · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  8. Getting laid at MIT by plimsoll · · Score: 5, Funny

    The odds are good, but the goods are odd.

    --
    Snickersnee3: Build your own 3-watt Luxeon Star headlamp from scratch
  9. Re:And they STILL can't dance by Adrilla · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --

    "Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
  10. Re:Neo? by Adrilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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'.

    --

    "Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
  11. They're engineers all right by MotorMachineMercenar · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    "We have an A-Bomb...what more do you want, mermaids?" --I.I. Rabi, speaking in defense of Robert Oppenheimer
  12. In other news... by dark-br · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  13. ping dancefloor by hughk · · Score: 5, Funny
    % 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!
    --
    See my journal, I write things there
  14. Some clarifications and notes by asoko · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.
  15. What are you going to do today, Napoleon? by Jakeypants · · Score: 5, Funny