This GPS Only Navigates the Mandelbrot Set

The Mandelbrot set is perhaps the most famous of all fractals, those complex geometric shapes that look the same no matter how much you zoom in on them — a property known as self-similarity. The simple algorithm that calculates the Mandelbrot set is a favorite of coders and hardware hackers who are looking for a cool visualization to show off on a new display. A Mandelbrot generator Easter egg was even included in the Atari Lynx game Chip’s Challenge (if you’re hearing this for the first time, the password is ‘MAND’).

Redditor chrismofer clearly enjoys Mandelbrot animations more than most, and so decided to create one that looks like a car GPS receiver. And why not? Who needs to know where they are going when they can watch a Mandelbrot animation zoom in deeper and deeper forever? Hmm… where did I put my old Lynx again?

The device is built around a small 128x64-pixel OLED display with an SSD1309 driver chip and a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 development board. The Pico carries out the standard Mandelbrot set calculations using 50-100 iterations, depending on the zoom level. chrismofer notes that this should run at about 15 FPS, but thanks to some optimizations, it tops out at closer to 130 FPS. Some of the math is optimized, and the algorithm also makes use of two processor cores simultaneously, with each clocked at 250 MHz.

This isn’t a difficult project to reproduce, but if you do, I might suggest that you install it on your desk rather than in your car. Mandelbrot animations can be very distracting, to put it mildly.