Input Devices¶
Group assignment
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Probe an input device(s)’s analog levels and digital signals
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Document your work on the group work page and reflect on your individual page what you learned
Individual assignment
- Measure something: add a sensor to a microcontroller board that you have designed and read it.
Learning outcomes
- Demonstrate workflows used in sensing something with input device(s) and MCU board
Have you answered these questions?
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Linked to the group assignment page.
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Documented what you learned from interfacing an input device(s) to your microcontroller and optionally, how the physical property relates to the measured results.
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Documented your design and fabrication process or linked to the board you made in a previous assignment.
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Explained the programming process(es) you used.
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Explained any problems you encountered and how you fixed them.
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Included original design files and source code.
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Included a ‘hero shot’ of your board.
Time Management¶
You can access my timetable here.
Group Assignment¶
You can access the link to our group assignment page here.
Reflection¶
Individual Assignment¶
For this week’s assignment, we needed to add a sensor to a microcontroller board that I have designed and measure something with the sensor. For this, I initially thought of adding an RFID module to the microcontroller board that I had designed last week.
Adding an RFID module¶
The RFID module I am going to be using is the RC522 module.
For reference, this is what my board to which I connnected my RFID module looks like:
Arduino IDE¶
Open your Arduino IDE and make sure to download the library of your sensor.
Downloading library
Go to Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries.
Install your required library.
Trying out an Example Code
To test my board and my RFID module, I decided to try an example code.
Go to File > Example > MFRC522 > Dumpinfo
This code is supposed to display the ID of the RFID card you scan to the reader in the serial monitor.
Verify and upload your code after connecting your board to your laptop. After that is done, open the serial monitor. Go to, Tools > Serial Monitor.
Error¶
This is what my serial monitor displayed after verifying and uploading my code.
Firmware Version: 0x0 = (unknown)
WARNING: Communication failure, is the MFRC522 properly connected?
Scan PICC to see UID, SAK, type, and data blocks...
I intially thought that there was something worng with my board, so I switched to an Arduino UNO. I made sure the Arduino Board works by trying the blink code on it. However, it gave me the same results. I then concluded that there was something wrong with my RFID module😔💔
This is the link I used to connect my RFID reader with my Arduino (which did not work in the end but it should still work for working RFID cards).