Seattle Transit Live

See a live Seattle transit map built with 383 LEDs. Learn how AI agents aided in circuit board design, scripting, and debugging this colorful hardware project.

Codex Claude KiCad Picoscop oscilloscope JLCPCB

Overview

I built a circuit board map with 383 color LEDs that shows live Seattle area transit data. While the end result isn’t an AI project, I made extensive use of agents in development. From learning about DC circuits to design, scripting, hardware debugging and BOM optimization.

The boards are colorful and great conversation starters. This would be a fun opportunity to discuss the build process with interested folks.

Links

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nRUwWof4rk51J2jJA
A shared Google Photos album documenting Seattle Transit Live media.
https://www.seattletransitlive.com
ESP32-C3 PCB map driving 247 LEDs via WSDOT/OneBusAway WiFi APIs.

Tech stack

Codex

Codex is OpenAI's autonomous AI software engineering agent: it executes full development tasks in a sandboxed cloud environment.

Codex is the advanced, cloud-based software engineering agent from OpenAI, built on a specialized model like `codex-1` (a fine-tuned version of `o3`). It operates on an asynchronous delegation model, allowing developers to assign complete tasks—not just receive suggestions—via the ChatGPT interface. The agent works independently in a secure, isolated cloud container provisioned with the user's GitHub repository and environment. It reads code, writes new features, fixes bugs, runs tests, and drafts Pull Requests (PRs) for review, significantly accelerating the development lifecycle. Access is provided through ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Enterprise plans.

https://openai.com/codex

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Claude

Claude is Anthropic's flagship family of large language models (LLMs): a high-performance, Constitutional AI system built for safety, complex reasoning, and expert-level collaboration.

Claude is a next-generation AI assistant developed by Anthropic, a research firm prioritizing AI safety. The models (including Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku) leverage Constitutional AI to ensure helpful, honest, and harmless outputs, a key differentiator from competitors. Claude excels at complex enterprise tasks: processing massive context windows for in-depth data analysis, generating and reviewing code, and providing expert-level summarization for documents up to 200,000 tokens. It is deployed as a conversational chatbot and via API, offering scalable AI solutions for developers and businesses.

https://claude.ai/

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KiCad

KiCad is the leading open-source EDA suite for professional schematic capture and printed circuit board (PCB) layout.

KiCad is a free, cross-platform Electronic Design Automation (EDA) suite, providing an integrated toolset for the entire hardware design workflow. The software includes dedicated applications like Eeschema (schematic capture) and Pcbnew (PCB layout), plus a 3D viewer for mechanical checks. It supports complex designs, offering features like hierarchical schematics, integrated SPICE simulation, and up to 32 copper layers. KiCad runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, making it a powerful, accessible alternative to commercial EDA packages for engineers and hobbyists worldwide.

https://www.kicad.org

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Picoscop oscilloscope

PicoScope is a high-performance PC-based USB oscilloscope that replaces bulky benchtop hardware with a compact, software-driven diagnostic tool.

PicoScope shifts the heavy lifting of signal analysis from traditional benchtop hardware to your computer. Connected and powered via USB, these compact devices deliver bandwidths up to 1 GHz, sampling rates reaching 5 GS/s, and deep buffer memories up to 2 GS (PicoScope 3000E Series). The companion PicoScope 7 software runs natively across Windows, macOS, and Linux, packing high-end features like serial decoding, mask limit testing, and advanced spectrum analysis straight out of the box without expensive licensing upgrades.

https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/picoscope-oscilloscope-range

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JLCPCB

JLCPCB is a rapid prototyping pioneer providing high-quality, low-cost PCB fabrication, assembly, and 3D printing services.

Engineers and hardware makers rely on JLCPCB to turn schematics into physical hardware in record time. Operating out of highly automated facilities, the company delivers custom multi-layer printed circuit boards, turnkey SMT assembly (using a massive library of over one million real-time parts), and rapid 3D printing. By combining an intuitive online instant-quote system with precision manufacturing, they make professional-grade hardware development accessible to individual hobbyists and commercial enterprises alike.

https://jlcpcb.com

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Seattle Transit Live

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