Milestone Project 1 - Update 2

This week was a lot of work! I had to get my final circuit made and soldered. I got it all working well but there are a few hiccups. The main one being that we ran out of female ends to make our cables over the weekend meaning that I would not be able to solder more male ends to my board and I did not want to solder the LEDs directly to the board just in case one of the LED burnt out or did not work for some other reason and be stuck. The solution I came up with is to do a half and half Frankenstein's monster with the circuit board for the LED signal and the breadboard for ground connections.

 Here are the top and bottom of my soldered board. The 90-degree male end was originally going to be for the 5v connection but is now not in use due to the running out of female connectors. I connected the bottom pins that connect to the Arduino to the top pins by created soldered bridges. This was tough! And I'm honestly surprised there are no short circuits!!


 The issue with the female ends also meant that I will have to keep the sensor connected to the breadboard, which is an issue because originally I wanted to have that mounted outside and below the base. This means I will have to do extra modifications to the base today!!

Otherwise, the circuit is running well!
//I still was not able to get the pins 2 & 3 to work so I decided to stick with that I know works pins 6 & 7 for the sensor #define trigPin 6 #define echoPin 7 int distance; int duration; void setup() { //initializing the pins for the LED signals. I did this in 2 parts because of the 6 & 7 pin interuption for the sensor. There may be a better way to //do this? for(int i = 8 ; i<=13;i++) { pinMode(i,OUTPUT); } for(int i = 2 ; i<=5;i++) { pinMode(i,OUTPUT); } Serial.begin(9600); //don't for get to still add the sensor pins into the setup! pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT); pinMode(echoPin, INPUT); } void loop() { //the time setup for the sensor to send and receive its signal digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); delayMicroseconds(2); digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH); delayMicroseconds(10); digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH); distance = (duration/2) / 29.1; //the many if/else statements to determine which lights turn on depending on viewers' physical distance, many a better way to write this? if (distance <= 1) { digitalWrite(13, HIGH); digitalWrite(12, HIGH); }else{ digitalWrite(13, LOW); digitalWrite(12, LOW); } if (distance <= 25) { digitalWrite(11, HIGH); digitalWrite(10, HIGH); }else{ digitalWrite(11, LOW); digitalWrite(10, LOW); } if (distance <= 50) { digitalWrite(9, HIGH); digitalWrite(8, HIGH); }else{ digitalWrite(9, LOW); digitalWrite(8, LOW); } if (distance <= 75) { digitalWrite(4, HIGH); digitalWrite(5, HIGH); }else{ digitalWrite(4, LOW); digitalWrite(5, LOW); } if (distance <= 100) { digitalWrite(2, HIGH); }else{ digitalWrite(2, LOW); } }
I still may add a delay at the end of the void loop so that the viewer will have time to look at the piece from different angles without the light immediately shutting off.

It looks like a real mess but once it is inside the base no one will be the wiser! It's not all daisies yet.
Things I still have to get done today:
-Pick up the transparency from the printer
-Modify the base at the woodshop
-Modify plexiglass to sit on top of the base
-Cut the trapezoid out of a plastic sheet
All doable but still stressful!!
But for the moment I will enjoy that I got the circuit running!