Stupid Pet Trick! Phys Comp Week 5

It is October and the burgeoning autumn is filled with the gorgeous purples and reds of fall leaves, fields of pumpkins, clear nights, crispy air, and THE COMING COLD. The upcoming months of celebration and Thanksgiving makes me think - what about the homeless? What can I, with an arudino and LEDs do for the poor and without shelter?

Then an idea came to me: What if Hobos (Hoboes? Hobi?) could keep themselves warm?

For my first stupid pet trick I was going to create a Hobo Warmer.

I sewed a thermoster, a sensor that senses heat, into a pair of gloves.















I then hooked up the gloves to five LEDs that will light up one at time the more heat you generate while rubbing your hands together.















Before I used the gloves, I tried it with one LED to make sure it worked.

Pet Trick Test! from Krystal Banzon on Vimeo.

Below is a video of my Hobo Warmers and the code I used to program the arduino.

Hobo Warmth - My First Pet Trick from Krystal Banzon on Vimeo.

CODE:
int potPin = 0; // Analog input pin that the potentiometer is attached to
int sensorValue = 0; // value read from the analog sensor
int led0 = 3; // PWM pin that the LED is on. n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 9
int led1 = 4;
int led2 = 7;
int led3 = 8;
int led4 = 12;

void setup() {
// initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
Serial.begin(9600);
// declare the led pin as an output:
pinMode(led0, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led3, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led4, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
sensorValue = analogRead(potPin); // read the pot value

// map the sensor vaue from the input range (400 - 900, for example)
// to the output range (0-255). Change the values 400 and 900 below
// to match the range your analog input gives:
int brightness = map(sensorValue, 26, 27, 0, 255);
analogWrite(led0, brightness); // set the LED brightness with the result

int brightnessMore = map(sensorValue, 29, 30, 0, 255);
analogWrite(led1, brightnessMore);

int brightnessEvenMore = map(sensorValue, 31, 32, 0, 255);
analogWrite(led2, brightnessEvenMore);

int brightnessMost = map(sensorValue, 33, 34, 0, 255);
analogWrite(led3, brightnessMost);

int brightnessBest = map(sensorValue, 35, 37, 0, 255);
analogWrite(led4, brightnessBest);

Serial.println(sensorValue); // print the pot value back to the debugger pane
delay(20); // wait 10 milliseconds before the next loop
}

PAST LABS:

Electronics Lab















All right! Testing voltage with a micrometer.















Video of my breakthrough figuring out the servomotor using a flex sensor!



Working hard with my girl, Lisa Maria.















Shoutout to my boys Benji and Garrad!















For more pictures of the all night work party, click here!

Lab 3 - Electronics Lab

I put together my DC power jack and I hooked up the jack and what I think is a voltage regulator to to my breadboard.





















I plugged the DC jack in to the 12volt power supply. Then I started to smell burning.

I thought, "OMG. What have I done?"

As I was looking around my circuitry, I felt heat coming from the voltage regulator, and when I touched it, it was very hot. I immediately unplugged the power supply, undid my wiring, and discovered that I melted my breadboard.
















Questions:
*Why did this happen?
*How did I do this?

Also, during this exercise, before I realized what I was happening, I was using the multimeter to try and check an LED on the board, and no reading was coming through. Why?

Still figuring it out.

Fantasy Device!

My fantasy device is a Universal Translator. It would be like a cell phone, with a screen, a keyboard, and an internal microphone.

The computer would hold all the languages in the world in its reference. If a person is going traveling, or speaking with someone who speaks a different language, the person would put on headphones and the Universal Translator would "listen" to the person, translate their words, and through headphones you could hear machine translate the conversation for you.

If the person with the Universal Translator is trying to respond in the foreign language, they would type their word or sentence into the translator, and on the screen the translation would appear. It would be like a quick and handy pocket google translation (but better).