Week 9 – Shahram Chaudhry – The Emotional Snap

You know those days when you’re going about your day, composed, unfazed, maybe a little affected by how things are going,  a compliment here lifts your mood a bit, an awkward text there dims it slightly. Nothing dramatic. That’s me, most of the time. Collected. Measured. But then someone says something, or does something, and boom, something inside flips. And I get  triggered (Only a good squash session can fix that).

That’s the idea behind this project, the emotional snap, that flips from calm to intensity. The potentiometer controls a blue LED, which I chose because blue is often associated with calmness (or at least that’s the association I have). The idea is: when things are calm, you’re still feeling things, but softly. You turn the dial, and the blue LED glows brighter or dimmer depending on how strongly you’re feeling. It’s gradual, and ever-changing, just like most of our emotional states.

But then there’s the toggle switch. 

When flipped UP, it triggers a red LED, one that doesn’t fade in or out. It’s either ON or OFF. That red LED represents those intense moments of anger, panic etc. The contrast here is what makes the circuit special. On one hand, you have the blue LED, whose brightness gently flows with the potentiometer, like your emotional depth shifting over time. On the other, the red LED is binary, triggered by the switch, like someone pushing a very specific emotional button.

So this project is a metaphor for the way we, as humans, respond to the world around us.

The code for it:

int potPin = A0;      
int switchPin = 2;     
int redLED = 9;      
int blueLED = 10;    

void setup() {
  pinMode(redLED, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(blueLED, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(switchPin, INPUT);   
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  int potValue = analogRead(potPin);
  int brightness = map(potValue, 0, 1023, 0, 255);
  int switchPosition = digitalRead(switchPin);
  if (switchPosition == HIGH) {
    //Red LED ON 
    digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
    analogWrite(blueLED, 0);
  } else {
    // Blue LED with analog control
    digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
    analogWrite(blueLED, brightness);
  }
}

The schematic design:

Video Demo:

IMG_0611