Fibonacci64 Creates Glowing Spiral Patterns

We’ve seen many arrangements of LEDs here at Hackster, but few rival the subtle brilliance of the Fibonacci64 disc seen in the video below. As creator Jason Coon describes it in his Evil Genius Labs write-up, this project is "a beautiful 86mm circular disc with 64 RGB LEDs surface mounted in a Fibonacci distribution. Swirling and pulsing like a colorful galaxy, it’s mesmerizing to watch. It exists at the intersection of art, math, science, and geometry.”

This little galaxy exists on a custom PCB, which generates its unique spiral shape by emulating the arrangement of leaves, or phyllotaxis, of certain plants. This spiral arrangement is mathematically modeled using the so-called golden angle of 137.508°, approximated here using Fibonacci numbers (i.e. 1, 1, 2, 3, etc)

The device is driven by a Wemos D1 mini and a 74HCT125 level shifter shield, while code for the ESP8266 board as well as other ESP-LED experiments by Coon is up on GitHub. Two different styles of a 3D-printed case/diffuser are available on Thingiverse here and here, and the PCBs are listed on Tindie for $32. They’re sold out as of this writing — or perhaps still coming soon per this tweet — but you can always get on the waitlist there to be notified when they are available to ship!