Week 8- Journal

Task's idea

This week's task is to build a simple smart circuit that contains at least one action component that we can control wirelessly using Android GUI to control the action component.

I got the inspiration from this show teaching toddlers about colors, so I decided to use Android Phone GUI to control the action component (RBG LED )

Tools

I used Tinkercad web app to design my circuit.

Electric circuit components:

Jumper wires.
Arduino UNO.
Bluetooth module
9V adaptor.
breadboard.
RGB LED.
Resistors.
Avometer for troubleshooting.

I used Arduino IDE software to run and upload my code on the Arduino board

I used Arduino Bluetooth control app to control the action components wirelessly.

Design and Simulation

STEP 1

Open Tinkercad and click on create tab and select circuit

STEP 2

Use the bar on the right to search for the components

Search for the first component "breadboard" then drag it

STEP 3

Then drag the rest of the components of the circuit

Arduino UNO
breadboard.
Bluetooth module
RGB LED.
Resistors.

The action component is RGB LED

STEP 5

Wiring the components together is done this way

Development Process:

STEP 1

Prepare all the electric circuit components to build the circuit.

STEP 2

Connect the 5V and GND of Arduino to the breadboard.

STEP 3

Connect the circuit components

RBG LED is connected to resistors then to Arduino pins 11,12,13,GND

Bluetooth module is VCC & GND are connected to 5v and GND , Tx&Rx to Arduino Rx &Tx

Here's my circuit.

STEP 4

Open Arduino bluetooth app and make sure the bluetooth module is connected to the app as shown

STEP 5

I wrote the basic code for serial testing and tried it using my Arduino control Bluetooth app

Press the app keys and the readings will show on the serial monitor:

STEP 6

Let's now integrate the code we want for controlling the RBG LED with the main code:

STEP 8

This is our final code, compile and upload to the Arduino Board.

Upload was successful.

IMG_4113.mov

STEP 9

Connect the 9V adaptor.

The circuit is working perfectly.

Code file.ino

Overcoming Challenges

A challenge I faced was when I tried to test the wireless serial communication and the serial monitor showed "???" instead of the keys I entered

So this is how I solved the problem:

I gave my code a second look:

The 0 in the while condition is put in single quotation marks. which in turn will be read as a character not as a value.

I removed them and adjusted the code like this:

After compiling and uploading the code, the serial readings were accurate.

Code file.ino

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