Week 3: Final Aspect of Nature

Speaker Component I was able to connect a speaker onto the arduino unit along with the motor.

The aim was to have the experiment play chirping noises, which had some level of success. With a code snippet, I was able to make the speaker unit work and play a song based on set musical notes.

Unfortunately the quality of the sound was not pleasant, as instead of lively chirps, it belted out screechy pings instead.

Additionally, the motor and speaker are supposed to work concurrently but instead there seemed to be a pause between the two as though they could only function independently at any one time. A popular method of doing this would be with using the Scheduler Library.

Having said that, being able to work the speaker allowed me to learn how to power and play notes via C++.

Gyroscope The main aim of the experiment was to test out a swaying effect that was not too dissimilar to the Firefly Field.

The concept was to use the speed and weight of a rotating hand to have the ball shape travel and sway on its own.

Unfortunately since the design of the skeleton did not complete a full exterior of a ball, it fell on its side more than staying upright. It would probably benefit from having a significantly heavy weight connected to the bottom of it, and a more complete 3D ball shape.

I was also unsuccessful in getting a faster rotation of the motor to which I still don’t understand how to manipulate despite attempting 3 different types of code.

It might be a limitation of the type of motor I have instead of code but a lot is left to be desired from it. Another topic to bring up during the next consult.

To counteract the falling issue, I’m considering a teeter-totter concept instead where the base is more stable with the wide surface area. The sway effect should still be achievable as long as appropriate weights are used on the motor (see sketch below).

Alternatively, I could complete the current sphere shape and add weights, however its not an immediately available resource at the moment. A set of calibration weights start at $8.90 at the moment but I’m not sure if they’re the most suitable option due to their size. Maybe there’s a better, raw material that’s heavy enough to be used.