Italy Map PCB Tracks COVID-19 Cases Across the Country
Luca Dentella designed a custom PCB in the shape of Italy that displays infection rates with RGB LEDs.
As Luca Dentella puts it, “In recent years, printed circuit board manufacturers have made it possible to produce PCBs of different shapes, thicknesses and colors.” This enables a wide range of artistic designs, evident by his latest board in the shape of Italy. It's broken into the country’s 20 regions, each of which feature an addressable SK6812MINI-E RGB LED that lights up various colors based on COVID-19 infection rates there.
The board runs off a Wemos D1 mini ESP8266, which pulls data from a CSV file that’s conveniently posted on GitHub by the Civic Protection Department. Code for the project itself can be found on GitHub if you’d like to explore how this data collection works. The actual PCB files are available there as well for those looking to create their own.
The video does examine the code, but much of it concentrates on the artistic side of building such a PCB. This includes finding a map, opening it with Paint.NET, and producing the appropriate vector files in Inkscape. Files are then imported into Eagle and scaled, allowing Dentella to lay out the LEDs appropriately.