Assignment: DC Motor: Actuation Assignment 1

Collaborators:

Description

I created an electric, force-sensing toothbrush for this assignment, using a DC motor and a force sensor.  The force sensor is located where people usually rest their thumb on a toothbrush, and signals the DC motor to start spinning.  I attached a piece of cork off center to allow more powerful spinning and vibrating.  I sized the cork so that it wouldn't hit a diligent toothbrusher in the tooth, but it is still a risk and could be improved.

Components

One regular toothbrush

One FSR

One DC motor

One battery pack

One diode

One transistor

One 1-kohm resistor

One 10-kohm resistor

Several wires

Code

/*

 * one pot fades one motor

 * modified version of AnalogInput

 * by DojoDave <http://www.0j0.org>

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

 * Modified again by dave

 */

int potPin = 0;   // select the input pin for the potentiometer

int motorPin = 9; // select the pin for the Motor

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

void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);

}

void loop() {

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

  Serial.println(val);

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

}

Pictures

Video

http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~carolc/MVI_3052.avi