Germany-based Andreas Rottach’s multi-purpose LED table is an impressive build within a gorgeous-looking body. Play games, view (heavily pixelated) images, and become hypnotised by flashy lights, once you’ve built your own using his newly released tutorial.

LED-Matrix Table – 300 LEDs – Raspberry Pi – C++ Engine – Custom Controllers This is a short presentation of my LED-Matrix Table. The table is controlled by a raspberry pi computer that executes a control engine, written in c++. It supports input from keyboards or custom made game controllers. A full list of all features as well as the source code is available on GitHub (https://github.com/rottaca/LEDTableEngine).

Much excitement

Andreas uploaded a video of his LED Matrix Table to YouTube back in February, with the promise of publishing a complete write-up within the coming weeks. And so the members of Pi Towers sat, eagerly waiting and watching. Now the write-up has arrived, to our cheers of acclaim for this beautful, shiny, flashy, LED-based wonderment.

Build your own LED table

In his GitHub tutorial, Andreas goes through all the stages of building the table, from the necessary components to coding the Raspberry Pi 3 and 3D printing your own controllers.

Andreas created the table’s impressive light matrix using a strip of 300 LEDs, chained together and connected to the Raspberry Pi via an LED controller.

For the code, he used several open-source tools, such as SDL for image and audio support, and CMake for building the project software.

Anyone planning to recreate Andreas’ table can compile its engine by downloading the project repository from GitHub. Again, find full instructions for this on his GitHub.

Features

The table boasts multiple cool features, including games and visualisation tools. Using the controllers, you can play simplified versions of Flappy Bird and Minesweeper, or go on a nostalgia trip with Tetris, Pong, and Snake.

There’s also a version of Conway’s Game of Life. Andreas explains: “The lifespan of each cell is color-coded. If the game field gets static, the animation is automatically reset to a new random cell population.”

The table can also display downsampled Bitmap images, or show clear static images such as a chess board, atop of which you can place physical game pieces.

Find all the 3D-printable aspects of the LED table on Thingiverse here and here, and the full GitHub tutorial and repository here. If you build your own, or have already dabbled in LED tables and displays, be sure to share your project with us, either in the comments below or via our social media accounts. What other functions would you integrate into this awesome build?