Remote LightSwitch

Shown here is two boxes made of plywood that is white in color. One box is rectangular in shape and standing vertically (facing the viewer), and a blue screen attached is attached on the front. A white remote controller with several buttons of different colors is placed next to it (standing up). The second box is smaller in nature and horizontally shaped, with a rectangle shaped opening on its side and a black device (motor) inside the box. A vertically shaped hook with two prongs is attached to the front of the motor that sticks out from the box it is contained in.

This project helps me turn off the lights remotely without needing to manually control the light switch. A motor with hook-like arms is controlled with a remote controller that moves the hook in two different directions to mimic a mechanism of turning the lights "off" and "on". A LCD screen shows the current time.

Shown here is two boxes made of plywood that is white in color. One box (on the left) is rectangular in shape and standing vertically (facing the viewer), and a blue screen attached is attached on the front. The second box (to the right) is smaller in nature and horizontally shaped, with a rectangle shaped opening on its side and a black device (motor) inside the box. A vertically shaped hook with two prongs is attached to the front of the motor that sticks out from the box it is contained in.

A front view of both boxes for scaling purposes. Some wires and connectors are hidden or omitted for the purpose of aesthetic.

Shown here is the inside of the bigger rectangular box described from before. The cover is detached and placed to the left of the box. Inside the box are several lines of wires (some of which are taped together with yellow tape) and there are various electrical components inside the box (an Arduino, the RTC device, and two breadboards). To the right of the open box is the smaller box that contains the motor with a hook attached to the motor's front.

The inside arrangement is shown, the wires are taped together and down for organizational purposes.

Shown here is a close up of the smaller box containing the motor (front view). From this front view, the hook can be seen with its vertical and narrow shape that some-what resembles a fishing hook with two prongs on its two edges and straighter in nature in the middle.

A front view of the box with the motor with hook mechanism.

A side view of the box containing the motor is shown, there is a rectangular shaped slot with plywood sticking out of its opening. The hook can be seen attached to the motor's front.

A side view of the motor with hook mechanism, the adjusting bar can be seen.

IMG_6684.mov

In this video, I show the motor with the hook mechanism being controlled by a remote controller with the buttons "On" and "Off". When pressing "On", the motor rotates the hook in one direction, while pressing "Off" the motor will then rotate the hook in the opposite direction. The time and date can be seen on the LCD monitor from the top view.

Process

Shown here is a mess of wires of a variety of colors. The wires are connecting an Arduino (black and square device) to the LCD monitor (long rectangular device that has a glowing blue screen) that shows the time and date on the screen. An RTC (blue and small rectangular device) is also attached to the arduino with wiring, and a rectangular device made of cardboard is also shown which is supposed to be the rough prototype of the motor box.

Initial prototyping with a rough design made of cardboard of the motor and hook mechanism. A RTC and LCD monitor is wired up, displaying the current time and date. The initial idea was to have two transceivers that would communicate and send signals to each other in order but the idea was later scrapped to have an IR to receive signals from a remote controller.

Shown here is the motor, with cardboard attached to its front in an attempt to prototype the hook design. A hook is shown on the top of the image made of cardboard which closely resembles the final design which is a tall vertical stick-like figure with two protruding hooks/prongs on both ends.

A good amount of time was into designing and iterating on the design of the hook and how the mechanism would properly turn the lights in a desired manner.

Shown here a small rectangular box made of cardboard which is the initial prototype of the motor box. The black motor is inside the cardboard encasement and slightly sticking out the front. There are rectangular openings cut out on the side of the cardboard box. There is a small popsicle stick protruding out from the bottom of the cardboard box that is meant to be an initial prototype of the idea of an "adjustable handle".

A main idea that I wanted to implement was to have the motor be able to be "retracted" and "extended" manually in order to increase the flexbility and range of the hook. Different iterations on how and where the handle would be located was tested (handle at bottom versus in the middle) to test the effectiveness of each.

Shown here is a rectangular cardboard box that contains the electrical components of my project, so wires of a variety of colors can be seen sticking out from the cardboard box. On the cover of the box is the LCD screen taped to the upper top of the cover. There is a yellow battery in the picture and a top view of the cardboard motor box with the black motor inside (with a cardboard hook taped to the front of the motor).

An initial rough box made of cardboard was made to approximately the size needed to hold the wires, Arduino, and relevant electrical components. One enduring issue was the problem of creating enough power to aptly control the LCD monitor and servo motor device. Initially, I tried to use a battery to power the Arduino without needing to be connected to the computer but due to power distribution, it was slightly difficult to implement.

Shown in the image is a partially built version of the box, which the components were laser cut from white plywood. The walls and bottom of the box are attached and assembled together except for the cover. The cover has the LCD screen attached to it. The smaller motor box (to the left) is held together by blue tape.

The physical components are laser cutted and ready to be assembled. I screwed the LCD monitor onto the top layer of the box.

Shown here are the electrical components of my project, which displays numerous wires of a variety of colors, a red breadboard, a white long and narrow breadboard, an RTC (blue and rectangular), an the black rectangular Arduino which is where all the wires connect to. To the left of the electronics are the partially assembled (laser cut) parts of the boxes.

The electrical components are ready to be fit into the physical box.

Shown here is the inside of the box, which are the electrical components of my project, which displays numerous wires of a variety of colors, a red breadboard, a white long and narrow breadboard, an RTC (blue and rectangular), an the black rectangular Arduino which is where all the wires connect to. Some wires are taped together with yellow tape. A smaller box contains the motor with the hook attached to its front.

The electrical components are assembled and fit into the box, with yellow tape to organize and group wires together for the organization in order for all the components to fit properly into the box. The laser-cut hook is also attached to the front of the motor.

Discussion

Through the process of this project, I became more familiar and comfortable with working with the Arduino and the electrical components. Additionally, the process of laser cutting was also very interesting and one of the first times I've used a laser cutting machine of such a large scale. Since the nature of my project was relatively simple in its coding behavior, writing the code itself was not very difficult but finding the write libraries and piecing together the different libraries took longer than the actual coding process for my device's behavior. Additionally, some libraries were quite buggy with the remote control and IR, so it took a good chunk of time to find the right library and code that printed out the received signals from the remote controller.

The part of the project that I found to be the most time-consuming and difficult was handling the bugginess of using both the IR and servo motor together, combined with an issue with the distribution of power. Due noise that the servo motor often creates, disturbs the signals that the IR receives, which caused a lot of bugs in the remote controller not being able to properly control the motor since the IR was receiving too much noise and could not properly work. Additionally, an unexpected problem I ran into was distributing power to the electrical components. I had to power the servo motor separately with its own power source or there would be bugs in its behavior, or there would not be enough power for the rest of the devices like the LCD monitor so it would flicker on and off when the LCD and servo were connected into one power source.

A piece of criticism that I found very valid was regarding the material of the box that I used for the final physical form. I used wood as my final material, which the infrared signal from the remote can not actually pass through in order for the IR to receive and process this signal. I overlooked this important component, and hence the only way that the IR can properly receive signal from the remote controller is through a small opening on the side of the box that was intended for the USB connector from the Arduino to my computer. Another piece of criticism was regarding the LCD screen, to have a mode where one can turn the screen on and off. My device currently always will have the screen be lit and there is no on and off mode, which can be quite distracting at night when the blue glow constantly being on when one needs to sleep.

Overall, I am satisfied with the result of the project and the overall manifestation since it turned out to be what I initially expected it to look like. However, I would say I was rushing toward the end of the project which made me overlook some important details of the project, including the use of materials that could support IR signals. The physical form was quite simple and bare-bone and I would have liked to create and iterate more on the physical design but due to the time constraint, I opted for a simple box. Additionally, I would have liked to have the design of the box containing the motor mechanism to better designed as well, but I am quite satisfied with the idea of the adjustable handle that I attached to the motor. If I were to iterate on the project again, I would spend more time iterating on the physical form and playing around with the laser cutters since I felt like I did not utilize them to their full potential. Further, I would definitely try to make the whole device wireless since currently, the Arduino is still connected to my computer and not powered off an alternate power source, which would make it harder to mount.

Technical information

Project 2: Self Assistive Device

60-223 Intro to Physical Computing

Title: Remote LightSwitch

Description:

The code essentially detects if the IR receives a signal (from the remote controller) and based on the specific button(each with its unique signal) that is sent, it will rotate the servo motor accordingly to different degrees. An additional chunk of code is written to set up the RTC with the time and date, which is then printed on the LCD screen.

Pin mapping:

Arduino pin | role | description

-------------------------------------

3 output Servo Motor

SCL input LCD SCL (I2C)

SDA input LCD SDA (I2C)

SCL input RTC SCL

SDA input RTC SDA

2 input IR Receiver

#include <Servo.h>

#include "IRremote.hpp"

#include <DS3231.h> //RTC library

#include <Wire.h>

#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h>

// PIN ASSIGNMENTS

const int MOTORPIN = 3,

IR_RECEIVE_PIN = 2;

// Global objects

LiquidCrystal_I2C screen(0x27, 16, 2);

DS3231 rtc(SDA, SCL);

Servo doorMotor;

void setup() {

Serial.begin(9600);

IrReceiver.begin(IR_RECEIVE_PIN, ENABLE_LED_FEEDBACK);

setupLCD();

setupRTC();

setupMOTOR();

Serial.println("All Systems setup");

}

void loop() {

driveOutputs();

delay(100);

}

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// HELPER FUNCTIONS

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

void setupLCD() {

// initialize the screen (only need to do this once)

screen.init();

// turn on the backlight to start

screen.backlight();

// set cursor to home position, i.e. the upper left corner

screen.home();

delay(2000); // do nothing for 2 seconds

}

void setupRTC() {

rtc.begin(); // Initialize the rtc object

// The following lines can be uncommented to set the date and time

rtc.setDOW(WEDNESDAY); // Set Day-of-Week to SUNDAY

rtc.setTime(9, 0, 0); // Set the time to 12:00:00 (24hr format)

rtc.setDate(26, 2, 2025); // Set the date to January 1st, 2014

}

void setupMOTOR() {

//where motor is plugged in

doorMotor.attach(MOTORPIN);

}

void driveOutputs() {

driveRTC();

driveIR();

}

void driveRTC() {

// Send Day-of-Week

Serial.print(rtc.getDOWStr());

Serial.print(" ");

// Send date

Serial.print(rtc.getDateStr());

Serial.print(" -- ");

// Send time

Serial.println(rtc.getTimeStr());

screen.setCursor(0, 0);

screen.print("Time: ");

screen.print(rtc.getTimeStr());

screen.setCursor(0, 1);

screen.print("Date: ");

screen.print(rtc.getDateStr());

delay(1000);

}

void driveIR() {

if (IrReceiver.decode()) {

uint16_t command = IrReceiver.decodedIRData.command;

switch (command) {

case 37:

Serial.println("OFF");

doorMotor.write(0);

break;

case 38:

Serial.println("ON");

doorMotor.write(90);

break;

default:

Serial.println("UNDEFINED");

}

delay(100);

IrReceiver.resume();

}

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