Particle Fireworks on the Sense HAT

FireworksParticles is a more elaborate take on the classic fireworks demo. Instead of drawing a fixed geometric shape at each explosion, this version runs a small particle system with per-frame physics.

Source code: projects/FireworksParticles/FireworksParticles.java

How it works

Each iteration of the main loop produces one firework in four steps:

1. Launch — a white pixel climbs from y = 7 to a random target height and leaves a dim gray trail behind it, giving the rocket a bit more weight than the classic version.
2. Burst — at the target position, 10 to 15 Particle objects are created. Their angles are distributed around a full circle (with some jitter) and each gets its own random speed, so every burst looks different.
3. Physics — every frame each particle advances by its velocity, then a small constant is added to its vy to simulate gravity. The sparks curve downward and eventually fall off the matrix.
4. Fade — the color of each particle is scaled by its remaining life, so it dims out gradually instead of disappearing abruptly.

The animation loop stops as soon as every particle is dead or off-screen, so the duration of each firework varies with the burst.

Running it

This script depends on a specific branch of pi4j-drivers (my igfasouza branch), so you need to clone it and install it into your local Maven repository first:

git clone -b igfasouza https://github.com/igfasouza/pi4j-drivers.git
cd pi4j-drivers
mvn install

Then, with JBang installed on a Raspberry Pi with a Sense HAT attached, run:

jbang projects/FireworksParticles/FireworksParticles.java

The other dependencies (pi4j-core, pi4j-plugin-ffm) are declared inline in the script, so no extra setup is required.