Sudarshan Seshadri, TI Box - Adaptive Fan

For many, including myself, white noise is essential when sleeping. With my project, the speed of a fan can be varied based on various measurements to optimize sound and temperature.

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Inspiration

I NEED white noise to sleep. Since I'm in the process of moving and my fan has not arrived yet, I'm having a hard time falling asleep. I do have my 3D printer with me, and I've moved it to my room to generate white noise, and I've also tried using my phone to generate white noise. All this hassle has really made me think about why I need white noise and how to fix the problems that I might have with it.

What it does

My project detects:

  • the apparent temperature (based on temperature and humidity)
  • motion to detect tossing and turning
  • light to detect daytime
  • sound to compensate for already existing white noise (eg running water)

Each of these sensors contributes bit to the final speed of the fan.

The colder the temperature, the lower the fan should be, as to not get too cold. If the user is tossing and turning, turn up the fan a bit to ease them back to sleep. When it becomes morning, stop the fan so the user is not reluctant to get out of bed. If the environment already has a lot of white noise, lower the fan speed. A rotary motion sensor acts as a final multiplier to the fan speed.

How we built it

I used the MSP432 LaunchPad and the Grove sensors, had the board read data from each sensor, and calculate a fan speed from the values. The speed outputs to a 7 segment display and adjusts a PWM signal to control the speed of small motor which stands in for a fan. A real fan might be controlled by a MOSFET instead of the small NPN transistor provided.

Challenges we ran into

The provided libraries for some of the sensors did not work well, so I had too get libraries from elsewhere. This took a while to find. From a previous idea for this hackathon, the Wifi was difficult to implement and I could not implement it in time to include it in my project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

I learned how to use the MSP432 and the WiFi module (I tried to integrate it into another project but was ultimately not satisfied with what I made).

What's next for Adaptive Fan

This could become integrated into any fan - the sensors could all be integrated into the top of the fan, with the motion sensor sticking out a bit to be adjusted to point to the user. It should not be IoT for privacy concerns. For my prototype, the next step would be to CAD and 3D print a case, and connect this to a real fan.

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