Week 6 - Journal

First I started creating the circuit on tinkercad, as it was a relatively simple circuit I didn't need to sketch the idea beforehand or anything.

I connected 3 components to the arduino board, an ultrasonic sensor, and two action devices, an RGB LED and a buzzer.

The ultrasonic sensor is connected directly to the arduino, the RGB LEDs however required a resistance to decrease the current flow to prevent it from blowing up.

As for the buzzer, I wanted to control its volume because it took the recommended current it was extremely annoying , I wanted an easy way to control its volume to adapt it to different environment with different ambient noises.

I then created the code using codeblocks in tinkercad, I programmed the LED to shine different hues when an object is within a specific range of distance from the ultrasonic sensor, the colors used are RED, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue and Purple.

As for the buzzer, I wanted it it beep with a specific frequency for each range of distances, so I created a variable within each if condition and that variable will then determine the frequency of the buzz.

I then simulated the circuit on tinkercad to check for any errors and to test it out.

The next step was to get the code generated from tinkercad, and paste it to the arduino ide, I made slight adjustments to the code which could not be done in code blocks and uploaded the code to the arduino board.

(The adjustments I made is that I made the time of the beep a function of the variable y to give different beeping times for each state as shown in the photo)

Building the circuit was simple as all the components were already placed on the simulation so I just created a digital twin of the circuit in realiy.

Time for testinggg

The following picture shows the different visual feedback the device gives for each detected distance.

Testing but in a cooler wayyy

the problem that bugged me the most in the assignment was how poorly the RGB LED is callibrated, the green light for example was much brighter than the red leading to unexpecetd hues, not too much, I'm probably just picky, to acheieve colors I like I had to test out different values and combination on the physical arduino board, but I am satisfied with the end result.

I can totally say that the coolest thing I did this week was the waving hand exercise done in the end of the week session in the lab.