Students in the Electronics class displayed their projects for the
campus and community in a grand show in the Science Hall lobby.
Projects were varied--robotics, electronic music, and
balancing acts. Many of the projects required significant mechanical
design and construction.
This year every project used microcontrollers--single chip
computers that can be programmed to respond to sensor inputs and
can control outputs. For those in the know, we used the PIC 16F88
programmed in PicBasic Pro.
Much work was spent on interfacing, learning the hardware and
software details involved in sending serial data signals. Besides
"standard" serial we had to learn the PS/2 mouse, MIDI musical
instrument, and I2C sensor protocols.
For the first time we had a panel of judges (identified by hardhats) to make some special awards.
Don't miss the great video clips.
See them below.
Antigravity Stick
David Glick
H2O2 Robot Squirter David Bontrager
Mitch Yoder
MIDI Hendrix Guitar player Matthew Rody
RoboPendage Travis Weaver
Ben L Yoder
Air Harp Jacob Stucky Josiah Ditzler
Robot Line Follower
Jono Mast Eric Krabill
Mouse Interface Israel Ditzler
Moshe Hodges
Segway Junior II
Jonathan Nafziger
Victor Oyeyemi
MIDI Hendrix Guitar Playing Robot
Matthew Rody
MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) is thelanguage
that electronic musical devices use to communicate with each
other. Messages are sent through a single wire in the form of
three bytes of information: the status byte, which says to turn a note
on or off, and two data bytes, the first saying what note to play and
the second saying how loudly to play that note. The
Microprocessor of MIDI Hendrix receives MIDI messages from an electric
keyboard or some other MIDI device and interprets them. Then it
sends out signals to 10 different solenoids, four of which control
“capos” and six of which control “pluckers.” The solenoids
then move back and forth to capo or pluck a string in a way to play the
note that was sent to the microprocessor. Rock on.
The
Anti-Gravity Stick circuit and apparatus keep an ordinary broomstick
upright by adjusting the position of its base. The position of
the top of the stick is measured using ultrasonic rangefinders, and the
microcontroller uses this information to control the servomotors which
move the platform. The project succeeded in balancing the stick
in two dimensions for minutes on end. Circuit Schematic
The
mouse interface is a connection of a standard PS/2 Mouse used on most
computers to a microcontroller. Microcontroller communicates with the
mouse sending the information needed for the mouse to start sending
coordinate information. The microcontroller then reads the coordinate
information that is sent by the mouse and processes it. That coordinate
information is then inputted into a 2D Plotter which plots the X and Y
movements of the mouse, resulting in a plot that follows the mouse.
Notes
are played by “plucking” laser beams instead of strings. The
laser beams are hitting photo conductors whose resistance changes
depending on how much light is hitting them. This change in
resistance then gets translated into a digital “on” or “off” signal
that is read by the microcontroller. The microcontroller then
outputs a signal that can be read by almost all electronic musical
instruments. This signal uses MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface) which is standard for reading and sending electronic musical
signals.
Robo-Pendage
is a servomotor-controlled robotic arm that is designed to roughly
reproduce the motions of a human arm through a sleeve worn by the
operator. Flex sensors, which change resistance based on the
degree to which they are bent, are mounted on the sleeve and supply
data on the position of the arm and hand to the main microcontroller
chip. The main chip then processes this data independently of
timing constraints required by the servomotors on the robotic
arm. The servomotor positions are then sent from the main chip to
the servomotor control chip, which drives the servomotors used to
position the robotic arm.
Gnar-Bot is a line following and maze solving
robot. It has three infrared lights and sensors mounted between
the front wheels. Different materials and colors reflect
the light differently which enables it to tell the difference between
lines and the floor. The sensor is connected to the microcontroller
chip which sends signals to the wheels based upon the incoming signals
from the sensor. The chip contains different programs which alter
the signals sent to the wheels, allowing Gnar-Bot to follow or avoid
lines, navigate through a maze, or to be controlled by the onboard
buttons.
H2O2
is a fully automatic robot capable of delivering a short burst of
water in the direction of a heat source (such as a person, or a warm
wall). This is accomplished through the use of a directional heat
sensor on a servo that sweeps the sensor back and forth. To solve the
problem of running into obstacles, a distance sensor is included on the
sweep arm to “watch” where the robot is going.
Antigravity Stick
Video wmv format 7.7 MB
Video wmv format 6.2 MB
Video with smoke showing laser beams
Video wmv format 6 MB
