step 1: coming up with a plan

this week kinda intimidated me--it was hard for me to come up with an idea that seemed reasonable, applicable to my interests, and satisfied the weekly requirements. leo and i discussed connecting two xiao rp2040s with wires and having their built-in LEDs communicate with eachother.

then, i saw the group assignment, and i thought there was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. so i decided to break up two of the elements in my final project--leds and force sensors--and connect them each to one xiao esp32c3 and have one control the other.

the goal: sender/force sensor xiao controls receiver/LED xiao

step 2: wiring the xiaos

i connected my xiao to the pcb that had sensors, and the leds i connected using socket wires to another xiao

i read this website to get a better understanding of the sender/receiver dynamic

i consulted chat gpt for set up and testing, and found a three step process:

step 3: get a MAC address for the receiver xiao

i needed this in order to enable the sender xiao to speak to the receiver xiao

step 4: see if the xiaos can talk to eachother

here, i tested if the sender xiao could connect to the receiver xiao. the sender xiao needed to send "sent with success" and the receiver needed to say "ready to receive"

it took me so long to get to this point; i had to debug and check wiring over and over again. my arduino IDE was acting up for about an hour and i couldn't figure out how to connect properly even after going through the general steps. now that i got it, i'm not sure what one thing made the difference.

step 5: force sensors controlling leds (but across xiaos!)

after making sure the xiaos could communicate, i uploaded a program (see files) that would turn the leds pink when the sensor is squeezed and green if not.