Sensor Experimentation – Jack Sinclair and Alex Alspaugh

Work In Progress

To work towards our goal of completing our idea of "What if a public bench could interpret a moment?", Jack and I started experimenting with a few different sensors that were included in our Arduino kit. The goal here wasn't to perfectly replicate the sensors that are going to be used in our final design but rather to create something that is related to the final design. To do this, we built and tested two different types of sensors: an ultrasonic sensor and a thermistor. 

Ultrasonic Sensor

LED Off

LED On

We decided to try the ultrasonic sensor because it could be a sensor that we actually use in the final design. We are going to need to be able to detect if someone is sitting on a bench or not and given the ultrasonic sensor's ability to detect proximity it seemed like a good test run. 

To begin we first looked to the internet and found a very helpful article that detailed how to set up the sensor with an Arduino. After we got it working, we then decided to add on to it so we connected an LED and wrote a little if else statement that turned the LED on and off depending on the distance sensed. 

Circuit Diagram

Thermistor 

Ardunio is cold

Arduino is hot

After tearing down the ultrasonic sensor build we decided to try to detect temperature using the thermistor included in our kit. Although we plan to use a weather API to get the temperature in our final design we thought that this would be a good way to get a feel for how temperature behaves with the Arduino. 

To start, we turned to the internet again and found a great article on how to set up the circuit and code. While the article was very clear about what type of resistor to use, due to being new at this whole Arduino thing Jack and I struggled to find the correct one resulting in wildly inaccurate temperature readings. Despite this, through a process of trial and error, we finally found the right one and got everything up and running as it should. After this, we wanted to add something to make it our own so we wrote an if else statement that had the Arduino print to the serial monitor either "I'm cold" or "ouch hot" if it was above or below 75 degrees. To fake the temperature change we just pinched the sensor and got a little laugh at the result. 

Serial Monitor Output

Circuit Diagram