Baby Toy Assignment

For my project I built a toy designed to help put a baby to sleep. The concept is similar to the picture below, but on a very basic level. 

To build this toy, I attached two output devices to my Arduino. The first was a piezo speaker element, which I programmed to hum the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". The second was a servo motor, which I programmed to sway back and forth to the rhythm of the song. I then attached a rope the servo motor and a tiny pillow to the end of the rope, causing the pillow to sway back and forth. Ideally, this soothing combination of auditory and visual stimuli would help put an infant to sleep.

My toy is limited in that it doesn't accept much user input, but this is hard when the target audience is an infant. In general, all toys of this nature are limited in that an infant easily "interact" with a toy. Usually, he/she is just a passive observer or interacts on a basic level by touching the object. Infants are good at "listening", but are challenged when it comes to "thinking" and "speaking". 

My project is also limited because of the speaker I have (I'm not sure how soothing the screeching noise of a piezo element would really be).

I didn't have a baby to test it on, so I decided to "simulate" the toy's use with the help of a few of my friends. In the demo is also a view of the circuit I used for this project. The demo can be seen below.

(Sorry for the bad sound quality! You have to listen very closely to hear the melody.)

Servo motor controlled by potentiometer with Arduino

1

Servo motor controlled by Pulse Width Modulation from an Arduino

Questions:

1. We add delay so we can see the incremental changes on the servo motor. Without delay, it would appear to move fluidly.

2. to get a 45 degree rotation, you must simply write toyServo.write(45);

3. It can... see my toy assignment for proof!

Transistor controlled by Arduino

Transistor as Amplifier

Questions:

1. Maximum resistance makes the sensor less sensitive. Minimum resistance makes the sensor more sensitive.

Transistor as Switch

Questions:

1. Because it is connected to a 10k Ohm resister instead of a 560 Ohm Resistor.
2. 1st Led = .005 I, 2nd Led = .0089I.

Temperature Sensor and LED Circuit with Arduino

Force-sensitive Resistor and LED with Arduino

Questions:

1. This sensor could definitely improve accessibility for handicapped people in a number of ways. Two examples would be: A. Using the sensor to activate an automatic door for someone in a wheelchair. Using the sensor to communicate for someone who has lost a lot of movement and can only move their hands.