MADT 304 - Nadia Perna

Over the past two weeks, I have been working towards creating a 'stupid pet trick' using relays to control a household electronic device. I chose to use a fan as the manipulated item because fans interact with the viewer both through motion and the creation of wind. When I heard the name of the project I immediately thought of optical illusions, as for the most part, they are just a 'stupid' visual trick. I had a collection of spinning optical illusions (meant for a spinning top) and I chose the best one and put it inside the fan. It became even more silly when I added a rainbow 'wig' and stem to the fan. I am using an ultrasonic sensor to turn on the fan, and after two seconds it turns back off. A light is on the other side of the motor relay, so the light can turn back on as the fan is slowing down, which is when the illusion looks the best. Here is a photo of my stupid pet trick: Here is a video of my stupid pet trick: Here are two photos of the circuit: Here...

 This week I applied some of the in-class coding lessons to an interactive LED Circuit. My main idea was to create a system where half the LEDs go off and once interaction happens the other half would go off. In the simple example, I created this week, the 1st, 3rd, and 5th light go off together in a row, then the 2nd and 4th go off together once the potentiometer changes reading. I found success in creating what I wanted to for this week, though I certainly see the potential for similar code to be used on a larger and more complex scale. For more on that see the end of the post. The challenges I encountered were mainly associated with knowing how to order the code for it to work properly. I knew all the pieces necessary for this idea to function, but I wasn't sure what had to happen first. Once I was able to figure that out, the code worked well. The only problem that remains is the last LED in each light sequence doesn't fade in and out, it just flashes on. I still don't ...

This week I did a refresher on Arduino by using the 'Blink Tutorial' to make sure everything was set up. I also was able to refresh my memory of basic Arduino. I completed the tutorial, but once I got home I realized I had forgotten a resistor, so I couldn't do the tutorial as planned. Instead in the videos, you can see that it is indeed working, but it is working on the indicator light on the breadboard instead. Below is a photo of the setup, minus the resistor. Here is the video of the indicator light blinking ( CLICK HERE  for the video if the preview isn't working): Here is the code altered for the light to blink faster: Here it is blinking faster ( CLICK HERE  for the video if the preview isn't working): This wasn't exactly how this was supposed to work, but I know it would have worked properly if I had the resistor, so I am ready to learn more about Arduino next week.