Arduino enthusiast and redditor "awildlinkappeared" has published details of a simple persistence-of-vision device based around an Arduino. All you really need is enough hardware to drive eight LEDs and an Arduino (perfect for a protoshield) and the right code. A POV device can be fun - it blinks out the vertical pixels required to display text, and the user waves the device in the air at a rapid rate - and the viewer (or camera) sees the whole amount of text being displayed. For example - the before image:
and after:
It's a lot of fun, so for discussion visit here, and the Arduino sketch can be found here. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
When recreating your own POV device, consider building the external circuit on a ProtoShield - it makes your project all the more professional, and easier to enclose. We have a range of shieldsincluding basic PCBs, short versions and our ProtoShield Pro with SMD LEDs:
