Bad-Tempered Bee

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  Happy Bee

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  Inside of Happy Bee

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  Unhappy Bee

Inspiration

I was given an Adafruit Trinket 5V a few years ago and wanted to finally use it to create a project that was small and wireless. When I remembered I had a buzzer, I decided to create an angry bee.

What it does

A light sensor inside the cardboard housing allows the bee to detect for very bright light or not. When there is not enough light, the bee becomes angry and this is indicated by the glowing red eye and the sound it produces. The buzzer is very quiet so there is a red indicator LED for when it is on.

How we built it

A breadboard sits inside the cardboard housing with the Trinket, an RGB LED, a light sensor, a passive buzzer, and a 9v battery. The code was made using Arduino.

Challenges we ran into

The Trinket has long been replaced by new technology so finding any new advice boiled down to "do not use this." The small footprint means there are not many pins to work with and some have shared functions which can make them awkward to use. Also, the numbering of pins is different depending on whether they are referenced as digital or analog.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Light inputs and outputs were very important to this project and this was done through subtle holes covered by thinner material.

What we learned

I learned about active and passive buzzers and how they work. Especially passive buzzers and how the sound is affected using PWM.

What's next for Bad-Tempered Bee

To create a better Bad-Tempered Bee, a new microcontroller would be a must. In a better version, the light sensor could be better mounted on the inside for maximum light detection, and a second eye light could be added.

Built With

• arduino