Embracing Electronics...

So a couple guys at work have got me thinking about tinkering with electronics, which is likely a good idea since all things electrical confound me.

For a first project, I’m thinking about patching together a countdown time for our race starts. The idea is to have 10 strips of LED’s that light up, one strip per minute for a 10 minute start, or 2 strips per minute for a 5 minute led.

If that works I may try to get super fancy, and have 10 LED’s per strip, such that for the last minute each led lights up individually, one LED each 6 seconds (10 minute start) or for the last 30 seconds, one LED each 3 seconds (5 minute start).

Now just to add a level of complication… I am thinking it may be cool to add in some music with a strong driving beat, positive message, and element of excitement. I’m thinking of this one, but I need to add 1:30 to the end of it for 10 minute starts, and chop time off it for a 5 minute start.





Any Ideas out there?? For the 10 minute I could add a countdown to the back end of it, but I'm not sure how it would sound. For the 5 minute, maybe I should find another shorter song.