Monday, July 6, 2009

Sociable Objects Workshop, Assignment 1: Doorbell

This blog is now my journal for Sociable Objects Workshop with Rob Faludi, the class I am taking the second session this summer.

The assignment was to make a doorbell with two Arduinos, two XBee radios, and a buzzer. The second and third parts of the assignment are to have a doorbell with feedback and a nap function. So far I have gotten to the doorbell with feedback, although I am having trouble making the feedback-LED work. Here is my simple doorbell (which works fine):


This is the actual doorbell unit, portable and powered by a 9 volt battery. It is running on an arduino mini. When the button is pressed and released, it sends the character 'r' out through the radio.


This is the buzzer part of the doorbell unit, powered by a desktop power supply. When the radio recieves the 'r' from the doorbell, the arduino turns on the DC buzzer for 1 second. It also prints the character 'w' for the purpose of feedback.


Although the code is there for the doorbell to light an LED when it recieves the 'w', it hasn't been working. When I write 'w' to the arduino serial directly, it works. I also noticed that one of the radios was working more reliably as the buzzer than the other, and I think the problem may be related to that.