Umake Team 6: Arduino Musical Countdown Timer

Before the framework was added
With frame

Inspiration

What Our Project Does

Our project is an Arduino-based musical countdown timer that allows users to set and control a timer using three buttons. The first button starts the countdown, the second button increases the time by 30 seconds, and the third button decreases the time by 30 seconds.

The Arduino continuously tracks the remaining time and shows the countdown. When the timer reaches zero, the device plays a short musical tune through a buzzer to notify the user that the countdown has finished.

To improve the sound output, we added an NPN transistor amplifier. The transistor increases the strength of the audio signal produced by the Arduino before it reaches the buzzer, allowing the musical alert to be louder and clearer.

The system is built using an Arduino microcontroller, push buttons, resistors, a transistor, jumper wires, a buzzer, and a 9.5V battery to power the Arduino. Which Theme It Fits Into

Our project fits into the DIY Music / Audio category because it generates sound electronically. The Arduino produces different sound frequencies that combine to form a short musical melody when the timer finishes.

The project demonstrates how electronics and programming can be used to create and control audio output, which is an important concept in DIY audio design.

The Idea Behind Our Design

The idea behind our design was to create a simple and interactive timer that also produces music. Many timers only make a simple beep, but we wanted to create a device that plays a musical tune to make the alert more noticeable and interesting.

Overall, our design shows how programming and hardware can be combined to create a functional device that uses both timing and audio generation.

What it does

This project is an Arduino-powered musical countdown timer. It allows users to start and adjust a countdown using three buttons that increase or decrease the time by 30 seconds. When the timer reaches zero, the device plays a short melody through a buzzer to signal that time is up

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges included correctly detecting button presses, preventing incorrect time adjustments, and programming the musical tones for the buzzer. Ensuring that the timer counted down smoothly and that the sound output was loud enough also required testing and adjustments. We also experienced error messages on the lcd display when we moved some components around.