Week 09 - Arduino part 3

Lami'ah Nosarka
Dec 17, 2023
2 min read

Updated: Apr 23, 2024

29/11/2023 - 06/12/2023

This week we continued to learn about the Arduino circuit board and we were introduced to the ServoMotor and an ultrasonic sensor. We ended off our lesson with a mini challenge that incorporated both components.

ServoMotor Component

What is a ServoMotor?

It's a component that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.
Its precision control is enabled by connecting various pointer attachments.
Closed-loop Servo Motors rotate at 180°, giving controlled and precise rotations, making them more commonly used.
Open-loop Servo Motors have a 360° rotation capability.

Here is a #TinkerCad demonstration of how we used our ServoMotor

Here is our physical demonstration

Distance Measurement Component

For distance measurement, we looked into the ultrasonic sensor.

This component includes two ultrasonic transducers: one sends out sound pulses, and the other listens for echoes. It works similar to SONAR used in submarines for object detection underwater.

This is how the ultrasonic sensor works:

Pull down TRIG and then trigger it with a 10us high-level signal.
After triggering, the module sends eight 40KHZ square waves and checks for a pulse signal return.
If a signal returns, ECHO outputs a high level, with the high-level duration representing the time from sending ultrasonic to its return.

ree — Visual representation of input and output of sound waves

Mini Challenge

Reflection of the mini challenge:

Our group attempted the mini challege. We found some difficulty with our wiring but managed to figure out our way through it. We also ran into some confusion with our code, however this was resolved after another group explained their solution which aided in the understanding of our errors.