Thursday, November 1, 2012

Build update: Which way are you going?



While my kids went out with their mother for Hallowe'en, I stayed home to work on the chair while handing out candy. When I initially planned this project, I broke it down into 5 milestones in the 3 sections of the chair build. Those milestones were:

# Turn/Brake/Reverse Indicators Proximity Sensors Quote of the Day
1 2 LEDs, one for left, one for Right. No reverse or brake lights None None
2 Multiple LEDs to form an arrow shape. Brake and reverse indicators included None Brake light blinks message in Morse Code
3 Speaker included for reverse audio alerts Rear Installation only Messages appear on LED; Messages hard coded into Arduino sketch
4 Same as 3 Front and rear. Same audible alert for each side. Text alert in rear for tailgaters Messages on LED controlled by a web interface accessible when Arduino attached to the Internet
5 Turn signals turn off based on the differential speed of the wheels Audible alerts for front and rear will be different. Vibration alert in the seat as well Twitter interface - displays the latest tweets with a certain #hashtag

Entries for Milestone 5 are my stretch goals, chances are I won't get there in the time I have, but it means I always have something to do.

I have accomplished Milestone 1.5 for the Indicator lights. Both my left and right turn signals work in addition to the reverse light. I am currently having difficulty with the brake light (it is always on) and the system is not calculating the speed properly yet. The sensors are working properly so I know its just a matter of fixing the code. I think the problem is that I'm running out of SRAM memory on the Arduino, it only has 1024 bytes.

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