Mushroom Forest

Playing with chain reactions on Arduino Uno.

This one didn’t go as well as I had envisioned, and most of the issues came from my choice of using a Servo motor instead of a stepper. As a result the 3D printed setup did not work, and I had to do without the movements from the motor.

The intial idea was to create a chain reaction that would activate different inputs and LEDs, as well as provide a soft motion to the installation.

A LDR senses when it gets dark outside, effectively starting the reaction. The servo motor was then meant to start rotating, moving two 3D printed “petal supports” that held the yellow LEDs and slowly pulling on a tilt switch. Once the tilt switch got vertical, it would have in turn activated the surrounding LEDs, set in their glow-in-the-dark mushroom shells.
As I mentioned issues with my choice of motor, I ended up removing the Servo from the actual setup, only keeping it to increment a counter, then used to determine whether or not to light up the shells.

It would still be easy to fix and redo, however, so here is the code!

/*

  Secret Garden
  Chain reaction using a LDR, a Servo motor and LEDs
  Zoe Caudron

  ------------------------------

  The LDR detects if the light gets below a certain brightness (is turned off/dark),
  and the yellow LEDs gets turned on. A counter is started, and is reset if the lights are 
  turned back on.

  Once the counter reaches a certain time, the Servo motor activates - this should have then pulled
  a tilt switch, but my pin 9 and my tilt switch stopped working before I recorded the video,
  and subsequently got removed from the project. Once the Servo has turned a certain amount (that would 
  have pulled the tilt switch), the mushroom shell LEDs turn on and fade/pulse.

*/


#include <Servo.h>  // include Servo library

Servo myServo;      // declare Servo
int pos = 0;
int servR = 0;
int brightness = 5;
int cB = 0;            // pin fading brightness
int step = 5;
const int LDR = A0;    // declare LDR
int sensorValue = 0;   // gets LDR value
const int pinA = 6;    // declaring LEDs
const int pinB = 5;
const int pinC = 3;
const int pinD = 9;
const int pinE = 11;

//const int tilt = 2;   // the tilt sensor stopped working in the end so I removed it
//int tiltState = 0;
int shellBA = 5;        // mushroom LEDs brightness
int servStep = 0;

int counter = 0;        // counts loops once the room goes dark

//----------------------------------------------------------

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  myServo.attach(10);
  Serial.begin(9600);

}

//----------------------------------------------------------

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:

  sensorValue = analogRead(LDR);
  brightness = map(sensorValue, 0, 900, 255, 5);  // check perceived brightness
  cB = constrain(brightness, 10, 255);  // makes sure the brighness stays within the range

  if (brightness <= 100) { // if the room gets darker than that value

    delay(100);
    cB++;
    analogWrite(pinB, cB);
    analogWrite(pinA, cB);
    counter++;
    //     Serial.println(counter);

  }
  else { // reset

    analogWrite(pinB, 0);
    analogWrite(pinA, 0);
    analogWrite(pinC, 0);
    analogWrite(pinD, 0);
    analogWrite(pinE, 0);
    counter = 0;
    servR = 0;
  }


  delay(100);

  if (counter >= 300) {  // obce the room has been dark long enough for counter to reach 300
    delay(100);
    servStep++;
    servR += servStep;
    if (servR >= 180 || servR <= 0) {
      servStep = -servStep;
    }

    pos = constrain(servR, 0, 180);
    myServo.write(pos);
    Serial.println(servR);

    if (pos >= 10) {

      analogWrite(pinC, shellBA);
      analogWrite(pinD, shellBA);
      analogWrite(pinE, shellBA);
      shellBA += step;

      if (shellBA >= 130 || shellBA <= 5) {  // shells never fully bright or dark
        step = -step;
      }

    }

    else {
      analogWrite(pinC, 0);
      analogWrite(pinD, 0);
      analogWrite(pinE, 0);

    }
  }


}