Ultrasonic sensor with LED UI

Inspiration

Our inspiration came from a Mathematician YouTuber who was able to program the LED lights on his Christmas tree to display animations. However, due to our circumstances, we decided to pursue a different idea which led to our development of the Ultrasonic Sensor with LED UI.

What it does

The Ultrasonic Sensor changes the color of the LED lights depending on the distance, measured with sound, from an object. As the distance between the sensor and the object decreases, the LED light turns red. Vice versa, as the distance between the sensor and the object increases, the LED light turns green.

How we built it

We used an Arduino to determine, with our software, how much current goes to each port, which causes specific colors to turn on.

Challenges we ran into

Originally, we wanted to program the LED lights to change color individually and according to sound. To achieve that, we needed hardware that was not available to us, and we would not have been able to obtain it in the timeframe that we had. In addition, we had difficulty with importing certain libraries that would have been required in the software we were going to use. Thus, we decided to change our idea during the development process.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Overall, we are proud of the development that we made. We are also proud of being able to utilize the Arduino and the circuity that controlled the LED lights. Although we decided to scrap our original idea, we were proud of the code that we had written before running into the issues that prevented us from continuing to pursue that idea.

What we learned

This was the first experience all of our team members had with using an Arduino. Thus, we were able to learn a lot about its capabilities and how to utilize them properly.

What's next for Ultrasonic Sensor with LED UI

Our next idea is to replace the ultrasonic sensor with a microphone instead. With the microphone, we intend to control the brightness of the LED lights according to the intensity of sound picked up from the microphone.

Built With

• airduino
• c
• led
• sensor
• ultrasonic