Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Dormitory Turned Into Huge Color Display

Posted by samzenpus on from the color-your-windows dept.

macson_g writes "Students from Wroclaw University of Technology (Poland) once again turned one of their dormitories into huge display. The project is called P.I.W.O. (B.E.E.R.). This time they converted a 10-story building into 4-color, 12x10 display. The business was used to display animations, and to play interactive games as well. On the project page (in Polish, Google translation here) you can watch an almost hour-long video, featuring music videos, a Tetris session, a dancing Michael Jackson, Duke Nukem and Mario."

20 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. But... by santax · · Score: 2, Funny

    When will Netbsd support it?

  2. Resolution? by pscott56 · · Score: 5, Funny

    What is the maximum resolution of a dorm these days? Not like those high end skyscrapers...

  3. badass by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A truly neat project. Are employers impressed by such feats? They should be. Does any body have more information of this? what sort of microcontrollers used, networking protocols...

    Also the social engineering is impressive. I wouldn't have had much success asking other residents to put banks of lightglobes in their windows where I went to university, but at my school we did have an inordinate number of whiny law student types.

    --
    sustainable living
    1. Re:badass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Looks like a Atmel AVR in 32-pin TQFP, perhaps ATmega8? Network is wired (imagine cabling the 12 rooms X 10 floors!). I bet it's some serial protocol, perhaps all floors are huge shift registers (each controller has 2+ RJ connectors to create a chain)?

      As for the social engineering, you can use a lot of social lubricant (BEER) while hand-painting the bolbs (which they did).

      PIWO acronym translates loosely to Huge Indexed Window Displayer.

    2. Re:badass by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 3, Funny

      In my university the only thing you see on dorm windows is stacked bottles of beer. Seriously.

      You went to the wrong school. At my university the dorm windows were full of stacked coeds. Seriously. :-P

      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
    3. Re:badass by lewko · · Score: 4, Funny

      Admit it - You only know that because you read about it on IRC one Saturday night, when everyone else had gone out.

      --
      Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
    4. Re:badass by MoonBuggy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I can't think of any reasons to have a problem with it other than the excessively contrived or the whining spoilsport types. It's a cool project, it took up a window for maybe a day, and there was a bit of noise outside for a few hours.

      To put it bluntly: lighten up a bit!

    5. Re:badass by LordRobin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I dunno, man. Watching this today, I thought it was incredibly cool. But when I was in college 20 years ago, I was a different person. It was a difficult time for me, socially, and my dorm room was the only place I could "get away" when I needed to. I think I might have been a little bitter if I was told I had to let someone in to wire up lights, and essentially be kicked out on show night ('cuz it's not like you could study or sleep in there when the show was on). I find it hard to believe that with as many as 240 students affected, there wasn't at least one poor schmuck who just wanted to be left alone.

      I guess I'm just saying that I hope this wasn't crammed down everyone's throats without giving them a choice.

      ------RM

    6. Re:badass by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wow, really? You can read the manual on some "ready-available equipment and software" and assemble it the way the engineers intended?

      Just because a product already exists doesn't make it any less impressive to build your own from scratch. These guys designed their own serial network and used it to switch multiple big electrical loads and it was robust enough for other students to play with. They did all this on a limited budget and also persuaded the entire dorm to let them install the hardware.

      If they weren't doing cool hardware projects that interact with the real world, they would have been alone in the dorm playing WoW or doing lame quizzes on FaceBook.

      --
      sustainable living
  4. In related news... by Seriousity · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Slashdot news template is converted into an image display!

    No seriously, if you can insert an image into the summary why is it such a rarity?

    --
    This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
  5. bit porn by Zankarst · · Score: 2, Funny

    Excellent! I've always wanted to know what porn looks like in 4 colours on a screen that big!

  6. Amazing what you can do with 120 pixels by amirulbahr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Whilst technically not very interesting, it was good to watch nonetheless and no doubt would have been a quite a sight in person. What is more interesting though is just how much content they were able to squeeze into 12x10 4-colour pixels.

    1. Re:Amazing what you can do with 120 pixels by DigiShaman · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you thought that was amazing, you will be blown away at the professional version located in Shanghai.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Amazing what you can do with 120 pixels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We have something similar on display each night in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. It's the KPN building, a Dutch telecom company. And yes, Tetris has been played on it. Resolution is higher too.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcia4Ae7Jas

  7. Blinkenlicht by knappe+duivel · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also done by Chaos Computer Club in Berlin in 2001, called Blinkenlicht. http://www.blinkenlights.net/

    1. Re:Blinkenlicht by sznupi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Obviously.

      No, I'm beeing serious here - it's quite typical for PL computer, internet or, in this case, "social technical experiment/fun" areas to not even try coming up with anything new, just copying (usually poorly).

      What's worse, such things grab a hold on local market far too often, through some kind of ill conceived patriotism, and create a bit of a tech ghetto here.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  8. In Finland too, back in 2007 by Zarhan · · Score: 3, Informative

    The biggest apartment building in nordic countries, when undergoing renovation, was set up in a similar fashion...see http://www.mikontalolights.fi/en/

    Includes a video.

  9. Re:Name of the first song on the video? by Zeussy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nice! Does anyone know the name of the first song on the hour long video? That's a really nice chiptune.

    Well, it was driving me insane as I have been listening to Chiptune songs for the last 2-3weeks, and I knew I had heard it, so after a search through my play list, here it is:

    Mr. Spastic - Sloppy

    His album and many great others can be got for free (under creative commons) from 8bit Peoples

    --
    Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
  10. Re:This has been done before by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Funny

    Then get me his non-union Polish equivalent!

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  11. Re:B.E.E.R.??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Piwo" as a word in Polish means beer.