Team Members
Jacob Taylor
Thomas McCarthy
Karl Mulnik
Summary:
A light that detects the light level where you are either doing school work or studying and adjusts its light level so it remains consistent.
Parts:
light bulb ECE Store White LEDs Part # 52K5249
wires In Kit
Arduino Uno https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11021
Light Sensor Photo Cell in kit
Resistors In kit
Breadboard Any breadboard for testing circuits
Sonar Grove - Ultrasonic Ranger (Part of the Seeed kit?)
Journal:
September 28:
First, we discussed possible additions to our project to make it more complex. What we came up with is to use sonar do detect if someone is sitting at the desk or not, and have the arduino automatically turn the light on and off. We also finalized most of the parts that we will use and drew out a high level block diagram of our project. The block diagram consists of a power block connected to two sensor blocks, an arduino, and a light block. The two sensor blocks, light and sonar, will feed back into the arduino to provide it information on what the current light level is and whether there is someone sitting at the desk or not. The arduino will then analyze this information and adjust the light level accordingly to keep it consistent.
October 5:
We finalized the parts list, found where each part could be purchased online, and sent it to Nate through email. We have already received the sonar sensor from Oscar so we do not need that. After that, we created a more in depth block diagram detailing how each of the different blocks will be connected to each other. Finally, we looked into some basic programming tutorials for arduinos because none of us have experience with programming. We hope next week to get started constructing and testing circuits and possibly having one member of the group continue with the arduino tutorials so that they can be in charge of creating the code.
October 12:
Due to our lack of components we continued to learn basic arduino code. We also learned how our two sensors work. Our light sensor increases resistance in darkness. Our sonar sensor uses echo to find distances. In the Arduino tutorials we made an LED light and later learned the more advanced technique to make an LED blink.
October 19
We gave our mid project presentation. We discussed problems we have faced and how we dealt with them. We listened to other presentation from other 110 students and found out the struggles they had as well. We also got our parts from the ECE Store( LEDs, Arduino uno, breadboard).
October 26
Today we started to do advanced arduino code for the sonar sensor, but had trouble uploading it to the arduino. We also built a test circuit for the sonar sensor, but without the code on the arduino we were unable to see if it worked as intended. We also began coding for the ohmmeter to interpret the signals from the photocell. Our plan is to take a look at our code this week and fix the problems in it so we can test the circuits next week and hopefully move on to building the actual prototype.
November 2
Today we continued work on the code for the sonar sensor and photocell. We got the sensors to work individually, with the resistance of the photocell being measured by one circuit and the readings from the sonar sensor being read by another circuit. Our plan for next week is to work on calibrating the two circuits to work at the values we need and then putting the two circuits together so that they can work together to control both whether the light is on and the brightness of the light.
November 9
The arduino code was continued. The sonar code was completed. Now our led turns on only when there is an object a certain distance away from it. The main error we had was by uploading to the wrong com port. For the light brightness code we will need to calibrate certain resistance that apply to certain brightness levels,
November 16
Today we merged the code for the sonar sensor and the photocell together. We now have a prototype that works most of the time. We currently face the problem that getting the LED to shine on the photocell is difficult when they are on the same breadboard, so we need to find a new way to mount the LEDs. In addition, there is a small problem with the code that prevents the lights from turning back on if the brightness is at its maximum, but the photocell still says it needs to increase. Over the break, we hope to address both of these problems so when we come back we can test our final project and address any issues before the presentation.
November 30
We build the final prototype. It has a three LED setup. If a more final project were to be developed we would use more LEDs and solder the circuit together.
Posted by nrenner2 at Sep 23, 2015 19:24