General: Stop Light Voice Level Tracker

Product:

Overview:

This voice level tracker is used as a tool to help monitor noise in a classroom. When children are young, they are still learning how to be self-aware. This means children often will get too loud, as they just aren't aware of how loud they can sometimes be! The tracker is a way to help students develop some self-awareness by allowing them to have a resource to reference that lets them know where the noise level is at. This device that was designed for preschool-3rd graders in mind can be used for older kids as well. This tracker represents voice level by displaying colors that follow the same idea of a stop light; red means the students are too loud, yellow means they are starting to get too loud, and greens means they are at a good level. This simple, yet effective device works great at helping manage noise in your classroom and helps students become more self aware.

Objective:

• For students to be able to recognize the level of their voices and self correct when needed based on the color of the lights.

• For students to be able to learn that many environments involve monitoring our voice level.

Supplies:

• Adafruit Circuit Playground

• USB connector

• Computer

• Felt 

• Marker 

• Sewing needle

• String 

• Sheer (optional)

Procedure:

1. Gather materials.

2. Program code onto Adafruit Circuit Playground*

3. Sew the playground to the felt.

4. Write the name of the tracker and indicate the meaning of each light color on the felt using the marker.

5. Cut a slit in the felt to slip the cord through.

6. Optional: add sheer over the adafruit to only show the siloutte of the lights.

7. Hang up in classroom and begin using!

*read about how to program the code onto the circuit playground in the "code" section below

Code:

1. Plug the device into the USB and then connect the other end into a computer

2. Go to the website https://makecode.adafruit.com/ 

3. Click "create new project"

4. Click the "settings icon" in the top right corner

5. Select "pair device" to connect the circuit playground and begin coding

6. From the center menu select "loops" and then drag out the "forever" block

7. Now select "logic" and then drag out a "if...then...else" block and place this inside the forever block

8. Click the "+" on the "if...then...else" block in order to create another row

9. Now from the center menu select "lights" and the drag out 3 "set all pixels to..." block

10. Each one of these block will go into each level of the "if...then...else" block, then from top to bottom change the colors on the "set all pixels to..." blocks to green, yellow, and red

11. Go to "logic" and select and drag out 1 "...and..." block and 3 " "..."= "..." " blocks

12. Go to "input" and drag out 3 "sound level" blocks and place each sound block on the left side of each " "..." = "..." ". 

13. Place the "...and..." block in the blank on level 2 of the "if...then...else" block 

14. From the blocks created in step 12, place each one of them in the 3 blank circles in the first two levels of the "if...then...else" block

15. On the 1st level of the "if...then...else" block, change the first comparison block to a "less than or equal to" sign and put the number 120 on the other side

16. Starting on the 2nd level of the "if...then...else" block change the first comparison set to "greater than" and on the other side put the number 120

17. The next comparison block to the right change the sign to "less than or equal to" and write 160 on the other side

18. Your code should now look like the one from the image below

19. Now all you have to click is "download" and your circuit playground can now do the code you created

20. You can change the numbers to ones of your own after experimenting with what would work best in your classroom. (120 and 160 represent the thresholds of the green and yellow lights)

Final Product:

The final product functions as seen in this video: