The matrix effect on a WS2812B based Arduino word clock - Part 1

A colleague of mine is currently building a nice word clock based on a 10 x 10 WS2812B matrix. I have already built (but not finished!) two 'regular' word clocks. The first one is a manually soldered 10 x 10 LED matrix in a Ikea Ribba frame. This matrix is great as it allows you to show animations and scrolling texts. My second word clock is a simpler one, you can only light words (using 3 shift registers). Hmm, maybe I should have started with the simple one?

But a WS2812B based clock, provides you with an extra dimension: color!!!

And the first thing we thought of, is the Matrix-effect! The green screen with falling letters, how cool would that be on a word clock? Surprisingly enough, we could not find a YouTube video showing what we wanted. Ok, googling on matrix and word clock, well, that's a very common combination.

So, this night I tried to make an Arduino program that shows a bit of the Matrix effect! I haven't had the time to make WS2812B matrix yet, so I used serial output. Hey, it's just a proof-of-concept!

This is what it looks like after two hours of coding:


Note, Arduino sends the letters back to my laptop using Serial.print. On my laptop I'm using Putty as it allows a clear screen from the Arduino.

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