Lab46 Wiki

Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs that fit easily into an electrical circuit. But unlike incandescent bulbs, they don't have filaments that burn out, they use less electricity, and they don't get especially hot. They're illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, and they last just as long as a standard transistor. The life span of an LED surpasses the short life of an incandescent bulb by thousands of hours. Because of these advantages, tiny LEDs are one of the most popular technologies used to light LCD TVs.

This project is a miniature and extremely basic version of minesweeper using the LED 8by8 Matrix and the joystick. The code selected a random LED and when the Joystick control gets closer to the selected LED a buzzer will sound higher pitched and faster between sounds. To select the LED that one believes is the answer press down on the joystick (axis-z). A red or Blue LED lights up, Red means the answer is wrong, Blue means the answer is correct.

For fso2, I used five items from my Starter Kit. Three LEDs, a proximity sensor and an LCD. An LED light is an electronic device that emits light when an electric current flows through it. So, an LED converts electrical energy into a light source. LED lights can also be used as an ON/OFF switch for a specific duration of code. A proximity sensor is a device that can detect or sense the approach or presence of nearby objects without touching it. These sensors also convert the information that is received from the approach or presence of the objects into an electrical signal. A Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) is an electronic device, which is frequently used in many applications for displaying information in a text or image format. An LCD is used for displaying the alphanumeric character on its screen. Alphanumeric characters are the numbers 0-9 and letters A-Z (both uppercase and lowercase). The LCD display is consists of 8-data lines and 3-control lines which are used for interfacing the LCD display with 8051 microcontroller.

Building the distance box.

Parts Needed: Foam board, Bass Wood, Clear Gel Tacky Glue, An Exacto Knife, the Arduino board that was finished being built in the fso1 project.

I used the foam board and the bass wood to build a box to place the Arduino board into. It's called the distance box. The opening in front of the box shows the proximity sensor and the LEDs. The other opening in the side of the box allows for the LCD to be shown. The distance box works in a simple way. As an object moves in front of the proximity sensor the LEDs light up and the LCD changes. If an object is very close to the proximity sensor then the red LED lights up and the LCD calculates the distance. If the object is halfway to the proximity sensor then the yellow LED lights up and the LCD calculates the distance. If an object is very faraway from the proximity sensor then the green LED lights up and the LCD calculates the distance.