Tiny Mega Land: The Place Where Drawings Come to Life!

I’ve always wanted my drawings to come to life, so I made it happen using Processing, Adafruit’s Circuit Playground, an old LCD monitor and a snow globe.

The first step is transferring drawings from a piece of paper to the computer. I simply take a picture with my webcam.

Next, the drawing needs to be usable. With Processing, I analyse the image and turn all the pixels into either black or white. All the white pixels are made transparent, while all the black pixels remain. This turns the drawing into a usable digital version, like this cute little monster.

Here are a few hanging out together in a first version of Tiny Mega Land.

To interact with the monsters, I use Adafruit’s Circuit Playground.

The movements of the accelerometer and the color of the LEDs are sent to Processing, via serial connection.

By tilting the Circuit Playground, you can move the monsters on the screen. The LED’s on the Circuit Playground keep changing color, and the background bubbles on the screen follow.

The Circuit Playground is very cool, but it’s even cooler when it’s placed underneath a snow globe. A 3D printed part holds it all together, and it makes for a very nice controller!

Last but not least, the old 2nd hand LCD monitor needs an upgrade. It looks so much better now, doesn’t it?