Make a led vu-meter with an Arduino

NOTE: I'm not an programming expert, arduino master or an electronics guru. Do this at your own risk.

This vu meter will be connected to your computer and will light the leds to the music... or any sound. I will be using the Arduino Uno image on the picture, because this I couldn't find the Duemilanove in the software I used.

What you need: 

• An Arduino (i used my old Duemilanove)
• A breadboard
• 10 Led's
• Around 1 meter of wire.
• Audio Cable Jack  (you just need the male part)

Connect 10 wires of 10 centimeter each from pin 4 to pin 13, and a ground wire, which goes to GND pin on the duemilanove.

Now you're going to use the led's. Each wire goes to the positive side of the led's. The other side, which is the negative, goes to the wire attached to the GND pin in the arduino board

We need the positive wire of the audio cable jack to be connected to the analog pin number 1. I didn't put the ground cable connected to anything, just stick it in somewhere in the breadboard.

The image above, doesn't show the audio cable. Make sure to stick it the red one which is the positive and just connect the male audio jack to your computer.

The last part is loading the code to the board. This code was not written by me, the author is James Newbould. It was linked on a Brazilian site.

CODE 

This is all. Now you just have to play some music. However, you'll need either to configure your computer to output the sound through the headphones and the speaker or use an audio divisor. 

Sorry for the bad quality of the following video.

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS by edX

I've been interested in Embedded systems, or I should say, I'm trying to learn about them. 

A couple of weeks ago, I read somewhere on Reddit that there was going to be a course on embedded systems in edX by the University of Texas at Austin! So, I tried to purchase my EK-TM4C123G board which is made by Texas Instruments but I failed miserably and ended up with pending transactions on my bank account. I should try to buy it again in 3 or 4 days when these transactions are removed and I get my money back! 

I will forget about the board for now and I should post an arduino tutorial. However, I'm not an arduino expert, programming guru, or a super smart electronics guy! I've searched for the stuff I do with my arduino (Duemilanove) on the internet and ended up having a lot of problems and I've managed to get through them. Always read, think, try and if this doesn't work, just repeat the process. I only have this old arduino duemilanove which I got when I was in high school but I just ordered an Arduino mini and I'm already thinking about some good stuff to get done with it. Maybe a quadcopter. Who knows.