arneshbluestamp

This is my portfolio for the 2 projects I did in the BlueStamp Engineering program, which was the Gesture Controlled Car with Accelerometer and Make Your Own Computer Game with Unity.

View project on GitHub

Homepage

Gesture Controlled Car With Accelerometer

This project is to be able to control a robot by making gestures with our hands. The main part of this project is to be able to make a robot and have that robot sense what he have on our hand and the robot is able to move around based on hand movements.

Engineer School Area of Interest Grade
Arnesh K Irvington High School Software Engineering Incoming Senior

Headstone Image

Demo Night

Here is the Demo Night for my project, which is the Gesture Controlled Car with Accelerometer!

Robot DC Motors and Gestures with Accelerometer

My final milestone was setting up the DC motors and determining the gestures for the robot. I soldered the male to male jumper wires to the DC motors and attached the other end of the male to male jumper wires to the OUT of the H bridge for the DC motors. I connected digital pins 6, 7, 8, and 9 to IN1, IN2, IN3, and IN4 of the H bridge respectively. I also had to connect the red wire of the battery switch to +12V of the H bridge, ground pin of the Arduino UNO and black wire of the battery switch to the ground of the H bridge, and 5V of the Arduino UNO to the +5V of the H bridge. The main problem I faced was that the metal part of the black wire of the battery switch was small so I had to strip the wire then solder the metal part and then it was easier to fasten to the ground of the H bridge. In my Arduino IDE, I made a test program to see if the DC motors were working and after seeing that the DC motors worked, I had to figure out the gestures depending on the position of the accelerometer. Using the set of xyz coordinates given from the position of the accelerometer in the Arduino IDE, I was able to determine the gestures according to how I held my accelerometer, through which I then wrote to the Arduino MICRO. The next and final step was transmitting the data from the bluetooth module (which is connected to the Arduino MICRO and the accelerometer) to the other bluetooth module (which is connected to the Arduino UNO, the H bridge, and the robot). Depending on the position of the accelerometer, I had to read the bluetooth data accordingly. After reading the data, I was finally able to get the wheels spinning in the direction I wanted to based on the position of the accelerometer.

Bluetooth Module Pairing

My first milestone was pairing two bluetooth modules together and being able to allow one bluetooth module to gather and receive data from the other bluetooth module through serial communication. I connected my Arduino UNO to the breadboard using jumper wires to connect to the bluetooth module and used resistors to divide current, where I connected RXD and TXD to digital pins 2 and 3 respectively. I also had my Arduino MICRO on the breadboard and used the same connections I made with the Arduino UNO, except I directly connected to TX and RX pins, instead of digital pins 2 and 3. The main problem I came across with was that I was able to make my AT commands work with the Arduino UNO but the AT commands would not work with my Arduino Micro. I had to talk with my instructor and we were able to solve the problem by receiving a new pair of bluetooth modules that were able to work through AT commands with both the Arduino UNO and Arduino MICRO. After connecting both the bluetooth modules, I was able to run the Serial Monitor on one COM port and allow one bluetooth module to gather and receive data from the Serial Monitor on the other COM port.

Bill of Materials

Part Quantity Description Reference Designator Cost Website
Robot Kit 1 Chassis, Battery Pack, DC Motors, Wheels, etc. M1, M2 19.99 amazon
Bluetooth Module 2 Serial Communication HC-05 19.98 amazon
Accelerometer 1 Measure Linear Acceleration Along Axis ADXL345 13.59 amazon
Arduino Uno 1 Microcontroller Board R3 23.00 arduino
Arduino Micro 1 Microcontroller Board R3 20.70 arduino
Jumper Wires 1 Connection Wires N/A 6.98 amazon
Dual H Bridge 1 Control Direction of DC Motors L298N 6.99 amazon
Breadboard 1 Build Circuits Without Soldering N/A 11.98 amazon
Resistors 1 Control Flow of Electrical Current N/A 10.99 amazon

Tools Required

Tool Cost Website
Soldering Iron 15.99 amazon
Screwdriver Kit 6.99 amazon

Schematics

Schematics

Final Code

// This is for the Arduino Uno
// Set up the first bluetooth module

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

#define tx 2
#define rx 3

SoftwareSerial configBt(rx, tx);

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(38400);
  configBt.begin(38400);
  pinMode(tx, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(rx, INPUT);
}

void loop()
{
  if (configBt.available())
  {
    Serial.print((char)configBt.read());
  }
  if (Serial.available())
  {
    configBt.write(Serial.read());
  }
}


// This is for the Arduino Micro
// Set up the other bluetooth module

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(38400);
  Serial1.begin(38400);
}

void loop()
{
  if (Serial1.available())
  {
    Serial.print((char)Serial1.read());
  }
  if (Serial.available())
  {
    Serial1.write(Serial.read());
  }
}


// This is a test program to check if DC Motors are working

int in1 = 6;
int in2 = 7;
int in3 = 8;
int in4 = 9;

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(in1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in4, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
  digitalWrite(in1, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in3, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in4, HIGH);
  delay(1000);
}


// This is to determine the gestures based on the position of the ADXL345 Accelerometer

#include <Wire.h>
#include <Adafruit_Sensor.h>
#include <Adafruit_ADXL345_U.h>

/* Assign a unique ID to this sensor at the same time */
Adafruit_ADXL345_Unified accel = Adafruit_ADXL345_Unified(12345);
 
void setup(void) 
{
  Serial.begin(38400);
  Serial1.begin(38400);
  Serial.println("Accelerometer Test"); Serial.println("");
  
  /* Initialise the sensor */
  if(!accel.begin())
  {
    /* There was a problem detecting the ADXL345 ... check your connections */
    Serial.println("Ooops, no ADXL345 detected ... Check your wiring!");
    while(1);
  }

  /* Set the range to whatever is appropriate for your project */
  accel.setRange(ADXL345_RANGE_16_G);
  // accel.setRange(ADXL345_RANGE_8_G);
  // accel.setRange(ADXL345_RANGE_4_G);
  // accel.setRange(ADXL345_RANGE_2_G);
  
  Serial.println("");
}

void loop(void) 
{
  /* Get a new sensor event */ 
  sensors_event_t event; 
  accel.getEvent(&event);
  double accelerationX = event.acceleration.x;
  double accelerationY = event.acceleration.y;
  double accelerationZ = event.acceleration.z;
  if (accelerationY >= 7.50) {
    Serial1.write('F');
  }
  else if (accelerationY <= -5) {
    Serial1.write('B');
  }
  else if (accelerationX <= -5.25) {
    Serial1.write('L');
  }
  else if (accelerationX >= 5.25) {
    Serial1.write('R');
  }
  else {
    Serial1.write('S');
  }
  delay(500);
}


// This is to receive data from the other bluetooth module and read the gestures
// The robot should move accordingly! 

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

#define tx 2
#define rx 3

SoftwareSerial configBt(rx, tx);

//character variable for command
char c = "";

//start at 50% duty cycle
//int s = 120;

//change based on motor pins
int in1 = 6;
int in2 = 7;
int in3 = 8;
int in4 = 9;

void setup()
{
  //opens serial monitor and bluetooth serial monitor
  Serial.begin(38400);
  configBt.begin(38400);
  pinMode(tx, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(rx, INPUT);

  //initializes all motor pins as outputs
  pinMode(in1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in4, OUTPUT);
}

void loop()
{
  //checks for bluetooth data
  if (configBt.available()){
    //if available stores to command character
    c = (char)configBt.read();
    //prints to serial
    Serial.println(c);
  }

  //acts based on character
  switch(c){
    
    //forward case
    case 'F':
      forward();
      break;
      
    //left case
    case 'L':
      left();
      break;
      
    //right case
    case 'R':
      right();
      break;
      
    //back case
    case 'B':
      back();
      break;
      
    //default is to stop robot
    case 'S':
      freeze();
    }
}

//moves robot forward 
void forward(){
  
    //chages directions of motors
    digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in2, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(in3, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(in4, LOW);

  }

//moves robot left
void left(){

    //changes directions of motors
    digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in2, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(in3, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in4, HIGH);

  }

//moves robot right
void right(){

    //changes directions of motors
    digitalWrite(in1, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in3, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(in4, LOW);

  }

//moves robot backwards
void back(){

    //changes directions of motors
    digitalWrite(in1, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in3, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in4, HIGH);

  }

//stops robot
void freeze(){

    //changes directions of motors
    digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in3, LOW);
    digitalWrite(in4, LOW);

  }