Lab - Potentiometers

Description
I chose to use two potentiometers, one that controlled brightness, and the other to control blinking rate of a single LED. However, to make things more interesting, I stripped a wire and used it as a touch sensor using code found here: http://playground.arduino.cc/Code/CapacitiveSensor
Using that code, and merging it with a tweaked version of the brightness potentiometer code, I made it so that if you're not touching the 'touch wire', then you control brightness via the potentiometer. Otherwise, you can control the blinking rate by tapping the wire in different patterns.
Materials
1 - breadboard
2 - potentiometers
3 - LEDs
1 - Arduino
1 - stripped wire used as a capacitive sensor
3 - 220-ohm resistors
Code
//Code used for the 2 potentiometers. This was the code given to us on the website.

/*
* one pot dims, the other pot changes the blinking rate
* modification of the following
* http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AnalogInput
*/
int pot1Pin = 0; // select the input pin for the potentiometer 1
int pot2Pin = 1; // select the input pin for the potentiometer 2
int pot1Val = 0; // variable to store the value coming from pot 1
int pot2Val = 0; // variable to store the value coming from pot 2
int led1Pin = 9; // select the pin for the LED 1
int led2Pin = 11; // select the pin for the LED 2
void setup() {
pinMode(led1Pin, OUTPUT); // declare the led1Pin as an OUTPUT
pinMode(led2Pin, OUTPUT); // declare the led2Pin as an OUTPUT
}
void loop() {
pot1Val = analogRead(pot1Pin); // read the value from pot 1, between 0 - 1024, for dimming
pot2Val = analogRead(pot2Pin); // read the value from pot 2, between 0 - 1024, for blinking
analogWrite(led2Pin, pot1Val/4); // dim LED to value from pot1
delay(pot2Val); // stop the program for some time, meaning, LED is on for this time
analogWrite(led2Pin, 0); // dim LED to completely dark (zero)
delay(pot2Val); // stop the program for some time, meaning, LED is OFF for this time
}
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//Code for touch sensor

int potPin = 2;   // select the input pin for the potentiometer

int ledPin = 9;   // select the pin for the LED

int touchPin = 4;

int val = 0;      // variable to store the value coming from the sensor

// readCapacitivePin

//  Input: Arduino pin number

//  Output: A number, from 0 to 17 expressing

//  how much capacitance is on the pin

//  When you touch the pin, or whatever you have

//  attached to it, the number will get higher

#include "pins_arduino.h" // Arduino pre-1.0 needs this

uint8_t readCapacitivePin(int pinToMeasure) {

  // Variables used to translate from Arduino to AVR pin naming

  volatile uint8_t* port;

  volatile uint8_t* ddr;

  volatile uint8_t* pin;

  // Here we translate the input pin number from

  //  Arduino pin number to the AVR PORT, PIN, DDR,

  //  and which bit of those registers we care about.

  byte bitmask;

  port = portOutputRegister(digitalPinToPort(pinToMeasure));

  ddr = portModeRegister(digitalPinToPort(pinToMeasure));

  bitmask = digitalPinToBitMask(pinToMeasure);

  pin = portInputRegister(digitalPinToPort(pinToMeasure));

  // Discharge the pin first by setting it low and output

  *port &= ~(bitmask);

  *ddr  |= bitmask;

  delay(1);

  // Prevent the timer IRQ from disturbing our measurement

  noInterrupts();

  // Make the pin an input with the internal pull-up on

  *ddr &= ~(bitmask);

  *port |= bitmask;

  // Now see how long the pin to get pulled up. This manual unrolling of the loop

  // decreases the number of hardware cycles between each read of the pin,

  // thus increasing sensitivity.

  uint8_t cycles = 17;

       if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  0;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  1;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  2;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  3;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  4;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  5;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  6;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  7;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  8;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles =  9;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles = 10;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles = 11;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles = 12;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles = 13;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles = 14;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles = 15;}

  else if (*pin & bitmask) { cycles = 16;}

  // End of timing-critical section

  interrupts();

  // Discharge the pin again by setting it low and output

  //  It's important to leave the pins low if you want to 

  //  be able to touch more than 1 sensor at a time - if

  //  the sensor is left pulled high, when you touch

  //  two sensors, your body will transfer the charge between

  //  sensors.

  *port &= ~(bitmask);

  *ddr  |= bitmask;

  return cycles;

}

/*

 * one pot fades one led

 * modified version of AnalogInput

 * by DojoDave <http://www.0j0.org>

 * http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AnalogInput 

 */

void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);

}

void loop() {

  int sensing =  readCapacitivePin(touchPin) - 1;

  while (sensing > 0) {

    digitalWrite(ledPin, 20);

    sensing =  readCapacitivePin(touchPin) - 1;

  }

  val = analogRead(potPin);    // read the value from the sensor, between 0 - 1024

  Serial.println(val);

  analogWrite(ledPin, val/4); // analogWrite can be between 0-255

}