Distance Lamps

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  lamp on

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  hardware

Inspiration

With Covid-19 we have all been restricted to our own homes for quite a while now, and as such we wanted to provide a way to stay connected with friends and family in these difficult times. With Distance Lamps you are able to send a personalized messages along with changing the lamp to any color that you want to let someone know that your thinking of them. Although this may seem like a lot of work it's extremely simple with our website and provides a more personalized experience compared to social media.

What it does

Using a combination of both software and hardware Distance Lamps is able to send personalized messages and a color to go with it from anywhere in the world. This is all powered through our website and Arduino .

How we built it

Distance lamps are built using a combination of both hardware and software. Starting with our website the user is able to select a color and enter a message which then gets passed into our Realtime database through our backend which is built using JavaScript. From here a python script reads this data and communicates it to the Arduino by using the serial port. Finally, after all the contents of the database have communicated to the Arduino Uno it then respectively switches the color or the RGB led and types the message onto the LCD screen. In addition to the LCD and RGB there is also a potentiometer that allows the user to control the contrast of the LCD screen depending on the surrounding light.

Challenges we ran into

- Connecting firebase to Arduino
- Working as a team with only one Arduino
- connecting JS to firebase

Accomplishments that we're proud of

- Making a completed project which has a fully functional lamp rather than just LED's
- Being able to make a website to control the project 
- Learning how to use Firebase with Arduino

What's next for Distance Lamps

In the near future we want to make a proper casing for the entire lamp so that all the wires are hidden and the lamp is more of a finished project rather than a proof of concept. In addition, we also want to transfer the python script onto the Arduino board so that it is much faster and takes less battery.

Built With

• arduino
• css
• firebase
• html
• javascript
• lcd
• rgb