Prototyping with Arduino

Building the circuit & coding

Why Arduino?

A common goal our team held was that for this project we wanted to build something. We wanted to try and make everything in our videos as real as possible. This meant that the work before we could start filming would be more, however it would save time during the post-production of the video.

So we needed to make two dials:

1. Where the user could check-in and start the experience
2. During the final experience, the user should be able to scrub through a timeline.

Because we already knew that we were going to work with projections, we wanted the prototypes to work with light as well. Therefore, Arduino would be the easiest to prototype with.

Building the circuit (kiosk 1)

For the first kiosk, we decided to ‘fake’ the check-in interaction (that in the actual concept should happen with your phone) using RFID tags. So we ordered RFID tags and a reader via Amazon.

We used the following website as inspiration to build the circuit and the code:

Reference: Led Control Using RFID (RC522)

We also had to download an RFID library to get the reader to work, which is explained on the Instructables page above:

Reference: Arduino — Libraries

The Arduino library was used to read out the Card IDs

Using the RFID library MFRC522.h we were able to read out the ID number of each card which in turn could be used to link an LED to a specific card. We first got it to work with one LED before configuring all 4. The image below illustrates the components needed to build a simple circuit with one LED.

Components stage one

Final code for first check-in kiosk

To keep the RFID tag reader standing upright we had to solder it to a circuit board (see image on the right).

Left image: final installation of check-in station, Right image: soldering the RFID readers to the circuit.

Final Result!

Building the circuit (kiosk 2)

For the second kiosk, we needed a hand interaction to trigger LEDs to turn on. First, we explore different pressure sensors but we needed to buy these sensors and we had access to multiple Ultrasonic Sensors, so we decided to use those.

Reference: Simple Project With the Ultrasonic Sensor (HC-SR04) +LED -Arduino Tutoriel-

The most complex thing about this circuit was being able to make this work with multiple sensors versus just the one that is used in the tutorial. Special thanks to Aadya for helping find the { placed in the wrong spot!

Final code kiosk 2

Final prototype!

References

Led Control Using RFID (RC522)

Arduino — Libraries

Simple Project With the Ultrasonic Sensor (HC-SR04) +LED -Arduino Tutoriel-