I'd be tempted to fill it with water with something dissolved in it to make it more conductive (and probably more viscous), and include LEDs whose brightness and/or color reflects the conductivity at their location. The rationale being, why should I do all that math when Nature will do it for me?
Isn't that precisely his first idea? A device containing a conductive liquid (mercury) that takes care of closing the circuits and the turning on the LEDs.
I'd be tempted to fill it with water with something dissolved in it to make it more conductive (and probably more viscous), and include LEDs whose brightness and/or color reflects the conductivity at their location. The rationale being, why should I do all that math when Nature will do it for me?
Isn't that precisely his first idea? A device containing a conductive liquid (mercury) that takes care of closing the circuits and the turning on the LEDs.
Water is a lot less luminescent than LEDs. I think the effect might be reduced if changed to a water based display.
What about a fluorescent dye with one (or few) UV LEDs on the edge facing inward to illuminate it?
Maybe not “better” than OP’s design, but could be interesting in its own way.
At such a small scale it will not slosh around satisfyingly.
i was wondering whether this could be hardware accelerated.