Final Project: Clever Cane 🦯

Design Goal

I plan on developing an electronic cane for blind or visually impaired people. With this cane, they can detect obstacles within two or three meters. It uses two distance sensors, one on the top of the cane and one on the bottom. The different vibration modes help the user know the proximity of the obstacle. A higher frequency indicates a higher proximity to the obstacle. The main goal of the cane is to help users move around more safely and confidently. 

Adjustments

I made a few adjustments to my initial design as I encountered some obstacles along the way. I have listed some of the major modifications I made to my project

Number of distance sensors: I realized that the Circuit Playground Bluefruit did not have enough digital pins to connect two distance sensors. So, I ended up using one distance sensor on the bottom of the cane.

Vibe motor: I  had initially planned to make the vibe motor buzz at different frequencies for different distances. I edited my plan to making the vibe motor buzz for different lengths of time.

Final Code

#include <Adafruit_CircuitPlayground.h>

#define trigPin 9

#define echoPin 6

int LED_PIN =3;

void setup() {

  Serial.begin (9600);

  pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);

  pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT);

}

void loop() {

  long duration, distance;

  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);  // Added this line

  delay(200); // Added this line

  digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);

//  delayMicroseconds(1000); - Removed this line

  delay(100); // Added this line

  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);

  duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);

  distance = (duration/2) / 29.1;

  if (distance < 50) {  // This is where the LED On/Off happens

    digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);

    delay(100); // When the Red condition is met, the Green LED should turn off

  digitalWrite(LED_PIN,LOW);

}

  else {

    digitalWrite(LED_PIN,LOW);

    delay(1000);

    digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);

  }

  if (distance >= 200 || distance <= 0){

    Serial.println("Out of range");

  }

  else {

    Serial.print(distance);

    Serial.println(" cm");

  }

  delay(500);

}