Project updates
Its been a long time since I’ve posted on the board. A few project updates. The electronics prototype for the lazy bartender has been completed. However, due to a lack of tools and materials on my end, none of the mechanical work has been done. Hoping to work on that sometime this semester if I can get a mechanicaly inclined person involved
I’ve been playing a lot with the arduino as of late – http://www.arduino.cc. I have tinkered with microcontrollers before and really enjoyed the projects I did, but the arduino really helps to take it to next level. It takes away all the pains of the microcontroller – programming being the big one; and adds a slew of cool features, like a great IDE and a programming language based on Processing. All this is done for very low cost as the bootloader is pretty small. I really think this would be a great addition to what was a pretty “boring” high school curriculum. Talks with Chad Whittington – the computer hardware and robotics teacher at Grimsby Secondary School have been positive. Hopefully we’ll manage to make some inroads here.
Another project I want to use the arduino for is a todo list for the kitchen. I’ve noticed that we aren’t efficient in our grocery shopping. We often make multiple trips to the grocery store as we forget various items. The goal of the project is to have a simple interface, where the user can add the item, and the item gets uploaded to a web server. When its time to go grocery shopping, the user just has to open up and application on their computer (web based or not) and print the list.
I started on the project last week. I’m using an LCD screen with a serial interface chip. This way I only take up 2 pins on my arduino instead of 7+ to control the LCD. For user input, I initially was going to user a keyboard and try to read the PS/2 interface. However, after some research I felt it would be easier to use a potentiometer as a letter selector (similar to the volume control knob on your car stereo); and a momentary push button to enter the selected letter. After the item was typed out, another push button would be used to send the item to the web server.The programming to display the correct letter on the LCD via the potentiometer is completed. The logic the arduino will use to send the word over the serial port to a computer is completed as well. On the computer, the logic to send the word to the webserver has been completed as well.
The following still has to be done:- being able to type full items into the LCD- add the ability for an “upload” button- data storage on web server – currently being stored to web file, might want to incorporate database.