During my time with an FRC team, I developed a custom circuit board to control LED systems on our robot. After graduation, I collaborated with my former mentor to refine this technology, leading to the creation of Lumyn Labs, a company dedicated to providing custom hardware solutions for FRC teams.

Project Overview: ConnectorX

ConnectorX is an I/O breakout board developed to simplify the integration of hardware components in robotics applications. The project required a blend of circuit design, embedded firmware development, and user interface design.

Hardware and Firmware Design

The board was engineered as a general-purpose interface, with a particular emphasis on controlling WS2812B (NeoPixel) LED strips. The board contains functionality to partition LED strips into separate zones—each capable of running independent animations—and provided support for interfacing with LED matrices to display simple graphics like text or images, even GIFs.

Modular Sensor Integration

ConnectorX was designed to work with a variety of sensors, including Lidar distance sensors, beam break sensors, and hall effect sensors. End users can easily configure the board to interface with these sensors using a simple plug-and-play system, and can even define custom sensor types using the web-based configuration tool. Custom user firmware is also supported, allowing for advanced integration with custom sensors or actuators.

Web-Based Configuration Tool

In parallel with the hardware development, I contributed to the Lumyn Labs Studio—a web-based tool that facilitates offline configuration of the board. This application enables users to set up LED channels, define animations, and manage sensor configurations without extensive coding, thereby simplifying the deployment process.

Demo

Below is a demonstration of the ConnectorX board running on an FRC robot.