Here you can see that you need some distance between LEDs and acrylic. Still have to find some way to bend acrylic without an expensive commercial bender, so I can even close the sides.
Other well known demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKG6ndEaz-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKIyl3Wh1jU
That looks great. Very effective little display.
If you’re looking to enclose it maybe something light and simple like foam core could be used to make some sides. Foam core is sturdy enough for short small pieces and super easy to work with.
I haven’t tried with acrylic yet, but I shape a lot of PVC and ABS with nothing more than a heat gun. I also used the oven once to evenly heat a couple of long strips of ABS. If you can’t heat and bend acrylic, maybe a nice PVC wrap to cover the open sides. I usually start with a section of pipe, make a cut down the length, heat it and flatten it, and then work it like wood.
Was the acrylic you used frosted or did you frost it? If you did it, what technique did you use?
I got the acrylic exactly this way from a company that works with acrylic out of their dumpster for free. I only drilled the four holes by myself.
And I’ll get a heat gun and see, if its hot enough fro acrylic. Thanks for your suggestions!
@marmil when I “frosted” mine I sanded each side with 220 grit sand paper. I sanded one side one direction and the other side 90° off from the other side. May not be the look you’re looking for but it worked for me. Sorry I don’t have any pics.
Really great animation I like that very much. I’m going to have to make something similar.
Oh that’s brilliant! Of course it’s going to be stiff enough just bolted together like that, for such a small amount. Thank you, you’ve just solved a problem for me 
Bending acrylic is easy: just heat it up slowly in an oven. Start with a test sample to figure out the right temperature and heating time. 10 minutes @ 150 degrees celsius is a good starting point. Heat it until it becomes wobbly like a dirty wet rag. Use gloves to handle it. Place it on a preheated form, for example a metal pipe and let it slowly cool down. Done. Deep-drawing is also possible for more complex forms. That needs a positive/negative form or just a vakuum cleaner to suck it into the negative. P.S. If you overheat the material a bit it causes little gas bubbles inside the acrylic - a very nice 3d diffusion effect. Last comment: I prefer a distance between leds and diffusor, where the light cones on the diffusor touch and slightly overlap each other. So arround 10-15mm for standard 5050 type leds. And what’s the mathematical model behind your pattern? Some “game-of-life” style automaton?
Hi @Thomas_Runge , nice work !
Just went through the original code from giladaya and see that it was designed around the Rainbowduino/Colorduino boards.
I would appreciate it if you could share your adaptation.
I will, if there is interest. I didn’t port any feature over to our superior FastLED, yet. Just enough to get it working. 
So, the code is not optimized, but runs fast enough on a Pro Trinket.
I’ll be back on my machine probably on sunday.
@Thomas_Runge Great thanks, I am not sure that I could easily extract the animation part out of that Rainbowduino specific code by myself.
@Thomas_Runge , how thick is the acrylic? Would 120cm x 80cm sheets be stiff enough to work well in the same kind of arrangement you have there?
I’m currently away from home and can’t measure. I guess it’s 6 or 8 mm. The size (w*h) is exactly 20x20 cm, distance from LED to acrylic is something like 5 or 6 cm. I just tried which distance looks best.
@Robert_Atkins From the video, I would say it is 6mm and yes that should be more than stiff enough for a 120cm X 80 cm sheet mounted on the corners similar to what Thomas did as long as the assembly is not mobile.
Maybe you can find a small company near you that works with acrylic and can give advise and/or free samples.
I have one around the corner of my office: http://www.carlthomas.de/ They were kind to give that one from the video for free. And they have lots of different forms and colors and sizes. And they have more and better tools then our makerspace, although it costs a little bit.
Thanks to 3G almost everywhere: here are my “ports” of giladaya code to FastLED. It’s quick and dirty and not more then get it running somehow. Have fun!
This is simply great! thanks for sharing!!
now, I haVe to ask the following. I have been trying some of these sketches with a “flora” from adafruit. (https://www.adafruit.com/products/659) and at certain point flora stopped working: I dont see it anymore available in my ports.
Is it possible that I fucked up my board?
It’s unlikely that you damaged your hardware with these sketches.