Hi everyone! I’m a rising senior at Long Island City High School and my starter project was the ultrasonic sensor. The reason why I picked this as my starter project was because I wanted to challenge my electrical knowledge. This starter project taught me a lot with the importance of polarity and how it can short the device that you’re putting together. My main project was the SMART coat rack, which was a self-made project. I wanted to learn the process that I had to go through when building something from scratch. It taught me a lesson when it came to the built plan. The built plan plays a crucial role when it comes to the actual building because if you skip a step, whether it’s a big problem or small problem you must go back and fix the problem to get your project working properly. I also learned that troubleshooting and doing researching about the technical issues you’re having with the project can actually help you because there’s a high chance that someone out there can be working on a similar component. BlueStamp has helped me develop more engineering skills that I will be using in the future for future projects.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SMART Coat Rack
Final Video: THE CODE WORKS!
My main project was the SMART coat rack and what it’s supposed to light up indicating what piece of outerwear the user should wear that day, in accordance to the weather. Each hook is assigned to a type of outerwear. The hook to the right is assigned to light outerwear such as cardigans and flannels. The hook in the middle is assigned to sweaters for days that are kind of chilly. The hook to the left is assigned to heavy jackets for those days cold days in the winter. The LCD screen prints out the current temperature and the LED lights up according to the temperature that is printed on the LCD screen. Each LEDs is set up with a different temperature range. The one that is assigned to heavy outerwear ranges from 40 below (fahrenheit). The one in the middle ranges from 41-75 degrees (fahrenheit) and the one assigned to light outerwear ranges from 76-85 degrees (fahrenheit). The ethernet shield is used to connect to the internet so that the arduino can be able to maintain the weather data from the internet. The major problem that I had to face was that google wasn’t giving out their weather data to the public so I had to find a different source to get my weather data. After BlueStamp ends, I’m planning to modify the mechanical rack by using plexiglass instead of plywood because it’s more durable and lighter. My initial goal was to design something beautiful that can be use as part of our daily lives.
DOCUMENTATION
Electrical Schematics
SCHEMATICS: http://bluestampengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Schematics-SMART-COAT-RACK_schem.png
http://bluestampengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Schematics-for-BSE-Project_bb4.jpg
MECHANICAL: SMART Coat Rack (Mechanical Design on SketchUp)
CODE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dZDMMdFuh2eYh5v5aOZe7FWda2FtI5V_R8TfkJosLJs/edit?usp=sharing
BILL OF MATERIALS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17b7-KcgDp7ElH4_TBfBGsmAWu_Rhy2qvEpXrCZ4n4mk/edit?usp=sharing
BUILD PLAN: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rf3_213b0VBU4aLKyc8lBoTNv-Zqj1LgCdj4Dw_Xvyc/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Second Milestone: ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS
My second milestone for the BlueStamp engineering camp is getting my electrical components to work with my mechanical rack. The led lights presented on the top of the coat rack is used to indicate what type of outerwear the user should be wearing for that day. What signals the LED lights is the weather data that I extract from the internet. The weather data is displayed on the LCD screen on the front of the mechanical rack. The biggest lesson that I learned from soldering pcbs is that you must solder all the wires that needs to be connected together in order to get the device working properly. The only problem that I was struggling with was the presentation of the LCD screen. I had to make a window so that the LCD screen can present the weather data to the user. The ethernet shield is used to get the internet for the arduino so that it can extract anything from the internet and use it for part of its code. An example of how an ethernet shield can used for extracting weather data can be seen within the for-loop below:
void loop()
{
Serial.print(“Connecting…”);
if (client.connect(serverName, 80)>0) {
client.println(“GET /data/2.5/weather?q=New+York+City&mode=xml”);
client.println(“User-Agent: Arduino 1.0”);
client.println();
}
else
{
//Serial.println(“connection failed”);
}
if (client.connected()) {
if(client.find(“<temperature value=”))
{
//client.find(“>”); // seek past the next ‘>’
value = client.parseFloat();
//convert from Kelvin to F
finalTemp = value – 273.15;
finalTemp = finalTemp * 1.8;
finalTemp+=32;
lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
lcd.print(“Current Temp: “);
lcd.setCursor(0,1);
lcd.print(finalTemp);
lcd.print(” F”);
delay(1000);
Serial.print(“Temp:”);
Serial.println(finalTemp); // value is printed
// (note: line 1 is the second row, since counting begins with 0):
}
else
Serial.print(“Could not find field”);
}
else {
Serial.println(“Disconnected”);
}
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
First Milestone: MECHANICAL RACK
My main project for BlueStamp Engineering is a weather data coat rack (SMART Coat Rack). This weather data coat rack is supposed to light up indicating what piece outerwear the user should wear that day, in accordance to the weather. My first milestone is the completion of my mechanical rack. This mechanical rack was designed to have two holes for the ethernet and arduino cables, which will make accessibility easier. I created grooves in the back of the mechanical rack so that when there is any adjustments that needs to made to the electrical components it can be easily accessed by just sliding the piece of plywood out. The three holes on top will be used to hold the jars in place. that will have the led lights to indicate the type of outerwear to wear for that particular day. The hole made in the front of the coat rack is made so that the ultrasonic sensor can sense when someone is approaching the coat rack. Once a person approaches the coat rack, it’s supposed to be able to turn on automatically. The window that is made in the front is made so that the LCD screen can visually present the weather data.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ultrasonic Radar (K3502)
Hi everyone! Although I didn’t make it for the first few days of the BlueStamp Engineering program, I was able to finish my starter project in 2 1/2 days. My starter project is called the “Ultrasonic Radar” kit from Velleman. It can be used as a parking aid, object detection, distance measuring and also in a security system but typically it can be used as a kind of proximity sensor. I picked this as my starter project because I’ve always wanted to work with sensors and I wanted to build something challenging. There are two parts to this device, the ultrasonic transmitter and the ultrasonic receiver. Once an object is detected, it would play a frequency of 40kHz. The detection angle for this device is at 5 degrees and the detection range is from 20 to 250 cm but it can be adjustable. Capacitors are used to conserve energy so that it can be released when the buzzer goes off. The resistors are used to decrease the current to prevent the device from burning out and the diodes are used to point the currents to the right direction. Out of the six IC sockets on the P3502B and P3502S PCBs, two are used as controlled timers for the circuit (P3502B), one is used to identify the signals from the ultrasonic sensors (P3502B), another three used as input and output devices (P3502B and P3502S). The 5MHz quartz crystal is use to regulate the communication between all the integrated circuits. Assembling my device wasn’t the difficult part but figuring why my device wasn’t working correctly was the hardest part. The labels on the IC mountings were so small that I didn’t even noticed them when I finished assembling everything. I had to go back to my manual to look over where the IC mountings had to be placed. Even after switching the IC mountings around I still had problems with the ultrasonic radar. It was going off continuously. With the help of my instructors Darshan and Kristin, I was able to figure out that I didn’t include my two jumper wires that connected all of my components together. Including jumper wires had to do with how the PCB was designed.
If you want to get a sneak peek of what engineering really is, you can purchase this kit here: http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/Velleman-Ultrasonic-Parking-Radar-Kit/dp/B007GP62F4
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For future BSE students, if there are any errors about the schematics feel free to email me at: [email protected]