STELLAR

Inspiration

During the pandemic lockdown, it has been a difficult time for everyone as we are unable to go outside our homes, relax and see the beautiful night view with friends or family. In fact, these socially isolating times have caused increased stresses at home for many individuals. Out of a personal want of relaxation at home, we created the project STELLAR.

What it does

STELLAR is a music reactive star projector, which aims to simulate a nightime ambience, as a means to promote mindfulness, in addition to future goals of social activity through storytelling (this is mentioned further in the next steps).

How we built it

We used an Arduino Mega 2560, powered by a power bank. A sound sensor is used to take the sound as input, hence every time it hears something, it ultimately powers the RGB LED to ignite different colours of light. Different combinations of the RGB result in more colours. The device reacts to the sound such as songs played through Google Home, thus making it reactive to music. The code within the Arduino is programmed so that every time the LED turns on, which is when sound is taken in as input, a different colour appears. The LED is connected as an output device with the resistors on the breadboard, while the sound sensor is connected as an input device. The constellation visuals are projected from an aluminum filled glass jar system placed on top of the LED. The system then projects light outwards and creates star visuals that can be seen on walls or ceilings in the dark.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges we ran into involved the sound sensor taking in the music as input. Since this was our first time working hands-on using Arduino and hardware components, we were initially unaware about the adjustment of sensitivity through the potentiometer. Therefore, we had trouble pinpointing why the LED kept lighting up, with no sound input. Another challenge involved the switching between the RGB LED colours. Even though we ensured that each time sound was detected a random colour was selected, we had trouble understanding why all colours appeared at once continuously - red, green and blue. We realized that a delay was needed, since we were not able to visibly see the quick change in colour. A final challenge we faced was time constraint and limited programming experience, as we wanted to implement the storytelling feature through Google Actions using Node.JS and the Jovo Framework, in addition to the use of Google Maps API.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the completion of the hardware aspect of our idea, considering we had no previous hands-on knowledge using Arduino and other hardware components. At the beginning, it was nerve-wracking looking at all the different parts we could use and having no idea how to start. However, now we are extremely proud after learning about Arduino to then implementing our newfound knowledge towards our idea. We are also proud of our combined effort to come up with ideas of implementing a cool hardware hack in the theme of Hackers of the Galaxy.

What we learned

Through discussion with mentors, we learned the utter importance of a pitch, so we ensured to put time and effort into our video pitch. Additionally, we learned to use different camera angles to record the hardware and then implement his previous personal video editing experience into creating an engaging pitch video. We learned how different components of hardware can work together, specifically the interfacing of a sound sensor with Arduino and the use of a 4 pin RGB LED. We also learned how one can troubleshoot issues through experimenting with and analyzing the hardware and code.

What's next for STELLAR

There are plenty of steps that can be established from the foundation of this entire system. For the visual aspect, we plan to improve the star visuals to be more accurate. Further technical steps involve connecting to Google Assistant using Node JS and the Jovo framework, in addition to use of the Google Maps API. This is to allow listening and sharing of stories from and for individuals nearby, creating a social environment similar to one during campfire storytelling. In a socially isolating lockdown, this will connect users to others nearby through the power of storytelling !

Built With

• arduino