This week I prepared a pressure sensor towards my final project. Although I think eventually I will use a servo-motor for input as well as  output I used the helloSTEP45 step response sensor this week to make a digital seesaw.

The design shown below is based on Neil’s initial STEP response board which I edited with help of David Mellis. I added one more 4-pin header, which necessitated switching PB3 - which was the initial charge - to PB1 and  added the other  4-pin header to PB3. This later required a change in the C code which so far has not worked yet. I expect to get it running by the end of today.

The edited design

The two sensor are made out of two vinyl-cut pieces of copper foil with laser-cut insulating outsides and a soft pad in the middle. By pressing the sensors a change in capacity reading should come out of each of the boards.

PROGRAMMING

The idea was to make a seesaw animation relate to the two inputs. The logic would be that one sensors input would be changed into negative variables so that when added would give a space of entries between -256 and 256 to move within a 40 degree turning angle.

I haven’t been able to successfully get my  board give a reading in python yet, so haven’t started scripting either, yet the graphics have been made and now just need a little help on the last push.

INTERFACE