Concept
Soo I ended up not doing any of my initial ideas (oops) because I came up with a more exciting one today while talking to my sister. Basically, this project will be an interactive time machine (of some sort) that lets the user travel to different years using physical controls, and choose to either play real music or news from that selected time period/year. My project is inspired by the computer game Club Penguin, specifically the game feature where the player completes missions as a spy for the PSA (Penguin Secret Agency) and uses gadgets to solve tasks. Similarly, my concept is that the player/user is assigned a mission to test out a new prototype time machine. (I’m also making the main screen kind of look like the start screen of the minigame Aqua Grabber in Club Penguin.)
Arduino and P5 Communication
These are the components I’m going to use in my project:
- 2 buttons, where one button selects the music, and the other selects the news broadcast.
- A potentiometer, chooses the user’s preferred year/time period that shows up on the screen.
- One more button, kind of acts like a start button, which will play the sounds of music of news after either one is selected by the user.
- 5 Green LEDs, each LED lights up just like the ones on the screen will.
Just to be clear, the potentiometer is the time period/year selector, and the buttons select either music or news to be played.
The main interface of this project will look like the start screen of one of the minigames in Club Penguin called Aqua Grabber, which looks like this:
Arduino to P5 Communication
Every time the potentiometer’s value changes by 100, the sketch on P5 will change the green lights (as shown in the picture) to the next one. So the first light is initially lit up since the potentiometer’s value is 0, and once it reaches 100, it changes to the next one (goes from left to right).
P5 to Arduino Communication
The specific green LED that’s lit up on the sketch on P5 will also trigger the corresponding green LED on the breadboard to light up as well.
How it Works
- User turns the potentiometer and chooses a time period/year
- P5 lights up the corresponding green light on the sketch
- Arduino lights the matching green LED on the breadboard
- User presses either the “music” or “news” button
- User presses the “start” button
- P5 plays music/news from the selected year/time period
Project Progress So Far
I worked on the Arduino part of it first. I attached 5 green LEDs and a potentiometer. As I explained before, the LEDs light up when the potentiometer’s value is within that specific LED’s range.
Here’s the code I created on Arduino IDE: FullCode
Here’s a video of it: