This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

With all the hard stuff wrapped up, it was time to publish the results.

This is actually the easiest part, even if you are technophobe.

1. Score a Domain Name from Domain.com
2. Get a Hosting account from BizLand.
3. One click install wordpress
4. Share your thoughts with the world
5. One click install a shopping cart
6. Insert products

Thats pretty much it. “Bam! Marketing.”

Now my early warning system is keeping me and my cube mates safe from JBOB and the TCBSBs.

This is an easy off-the-shelf solution:

1. Go to ustream
2. create an account
3. plug in the camera to the computer
4. hit “Go Live”
5. Embed the video feed in a website

Bam!

This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

Because I lack the design sense and resources of Apple. My creation is packaged in a cardboard box.

I like cardboard because I can cut holes with a pocket knife and then just throw everything inside. It makes it fast and easy. Plus we are rapid prototyping here, not creating a master work.

The camera is attached to the servo with zip ties. Who doesn’t love zip ties?

There were some minor tweaks that needed to happen. Most notably, when the servo rotated the tension on the camera cable would re-aim the camera. Problem solved with a beefy paper clip. Office supplies FTW!

This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

Finally adding the servo and fine tuning the operation.

I took a look at several servo tutorials and tested my servo separately. I had been using this servo for other projects, so I was confident I could make it work.

When you hook up the servo, the voltage coming off your USB cable will no longer be enough so you will need to also hook up your 9v power supply.

Then I edited the code I had been using with the motion sensors to add the servo. My servo rotates 180 degrees. So one direction would be 180 the other 0, the middle 90. I just had to figure out what the servo considered 180 and 0. Then I adjusted my program accordingly. This is the my final code.

This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

Next I added the second sensor. It gets hooked up exactly the same way but ends up dumping into a different pin. Check out the code I used:


int rightpirPin = 2; //digital 2
int leftpirPin = 4; //digital 2

void setup(){
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(rightpirPin, INPUT);
pinMode(leftpirPin, INPUT);
}

void loop(){
int rightpirVal = digitalRead(rightpirPin);
int leftpirVal = digitalRead(leftpirPin);

if(rightpirVal == LOW){ //was motion detected
Serial.println(“Motion Detected RIGHT”);
delay(2000);
}

if(leftpirVal == LOW){ //was motion detected
Serial.println(“Motion Detected LEFT”);
delay(2000);
}

}

 

By watching the serial output I was able to determine that both my sensors were working.

This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

So, to make this easy I assembled the first circuit for the first PIR on the board. Then  I ran the test program to make sure it was working. I used the following code that I found here.

This is what I ended up with:


int pirPin = 2; //digital 2

void setup(){
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(pirPin, INPUT);
}

void loop(){
int pirVal = digitalRead(pirPin);

if(pirVal == LOW){ //was motion detected
Serial.println(“Motion Detected”);
delay(2000);
}

}

 

This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

Over the next several posts I am going to describe how I hooked everything up.

To get started you will need what is called a bread board. A breadboard is a simple way of hooking up prototype electrical circuits. If you played with legos as a kid you will be right at home.

You need a breadboard because there are parts of the final device that have to be connected that don’t go through the Arduino. Additionally, I needed to power a servo and two sensors. There is not that many 5v output pins on the Arduino Uno, so the breadboard makes it simple to wire those three components up to the Arduino. Plus, I had to do the wiring for the PIR sensors (discussed in my PIR sensor post) somewhere.

This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

What is cooler than seeing your creation come to life. Seriously I have been having flashbacks to playing with legos here.

The Arduino platform makes it sooooo easy to interface with something like a servo. Basically, check out a tutorial on the subject. Play with their code and then frankenstein it into your own project. So after I had my code that looked for motion, I just replaced the “Hey Motion!” type outputs with ‘turn the servo over there’.

Update: Check out how the servo program was integrated into the motion sensing program in my programming post.

This post was imported from another blog I created. Its use has ceased so I have moved its content here.

The next challenge is detecting motion. For this I decided to go with dual PIR sensors. a PIR sensor is a infra-red sensor that detects motion. If you have ever seen an alarm sensor that detects motion, it’s the very same sensor. PIR sensors are pretty cheap. Usually around $10.

The sensors I selected are very simple. Which is good because there are some over complicated ones out there. It had a positive terminal for (5v), a negative terminal (for ground) and an output terminal for signal. Using this PIR sensor was easy. Just ask the Arduino to watch the digital input pin and if its on then do whatever.

Update: Check out the programming posts to see how these get coded.