Week 12: Interfaces

This week we are tasked with creating a user interface for an input or output device created earlier

What to Make?

Some ideas for this week are

• interface for tilt sensor to indicate if someone is falling

Here are the steps:

Download many things. I first downloaded processing and tried many tutorials and none of the examples worked... perhaps my java version isn't correct? I tried uninstalling and downloading again to no avail. Then, I used David Mellis's tutorial for downloading the Arduino environment. I downloaded teh FTDI header driver, attiny.zip and arduino code. I tried burning bootloader and found that com1 was not recognized. After some googling I got frustrated and tried Charles Holbrow's command line tutorial and downloaded crosspack and used neil's code. When I typed make the terminal failed to recognize the command. After some research I downloaded Xcode and waited forever for it to download. XCode won't work on my older mac even though I downloaded the right version, Or so I thought!! In the meantime I created a tilt sensor prototype for my final project.

Design Board or use one already designed

Many of my previous boards broke or failed to work at all so I tried on my existing led light and button board first and then created my own board to create an interface for.

Vinyl Cut Board

Try this in the future

Gather your parts

I was away from the lab this week so I went to radio shack and checked out their components, they had leds, a battery pack and a multimeter, I also got a mini usb cable and created a pseudo tilt sensor with leftover vinyl cut copper foil, ppaer and leds

Create the Board

Check all connections

I checked all of the connections with a voltmeter and added copper traces where needed

Debug Board and Program to light up!!!

I worked to debug the board, recutting traces, changing the orientation of the LEDs, and it WORKS! Need to add a microcontroller to the circuit design.

Results

• My tilt sensor works- need to add a microcontroller to it and actually program an interface for it
• my interfacing assignment has yet to be completed... terrible

Tools/Materials Used

software downloaded:

• Processing
• Arduino
• CrossPack
• XCode

For designing:

• pen and paper

For Making:

• scissors

Materials:

• battery pack
• paper
• leds
• copper foil

Lessons Learned

• copper foil is sharp, beware or you'll bleed all over your circuit
• downloading software and proceedig as planned never quite works the first time
• The voltmeter is an excellent tool to trace paths and connections
• Things are easier to figure out when you're with someone experienced.

Conclusions

• Start earlier.

Next Steps

• create board with bead so it is more dynamic
• create interface for board

Files

Copyright 2013 Kathy Sinclair