Keeping an eye on your network activity is an important part of network security, but did you ever consider it could be an important element of design? We're tickled to show off this cool Raspberry Pi art display put together by maker and developer Alex Chang that uses network activity to fire off LEDs in real-time so you can see exactly when packets are coming and going on your local network.
The project is essentially a huge geodesic sphere filled with fiber optic cables. The cables are attached to LEDs that are controlled by a Raspberry Pi which is programmed to make them illuminate when network activity is detected. When data packets are sent or received, the sphere lights up with a dazzling network activity-driven light show.
The Raspberry Pi isn't the only board used in this project, it's aided by an ESP32 module that works to help track packets over Wi-Fi. This information is then relayed to the Pi which operates the 40 separate LEDs to flash in response to each detected packet. This makes it possible to get a real-time understanding of your network activity at a glance.
The project involves a handful of 3D printed components, namely 12 pentagonal joints and 30 hexagonal joins which are available over at Thingiverse to download. These connect 60 wooden dowel rods to form the geodesic sphere. The fiber optic cables are strung throughout the inside of the sphere and connected to the LEDs. Because the Raspberry Pi 3B+ only has so many GPIO, it was necessary for Chang to develop a custom PCB to help operate all of the SMD5730 LEDs and TLC5916 driver modules.
The ESP32 relies on an open source tool known as ESP-EOS/ESP32-WiFi-Sniffer which can be found over at GitHub. The Raspberry Pi is programmed with a custom Python script that interprets the data from the ESP32. This code has also been made open source and is available over at GitHub for anyone to check out and use for themselves.
If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, you can check it out in action over at YouTube as well as the official project page shared to Hackster by Alex Chang.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
