The idea for my project has lead me to Arduino, but I’m a complete newb so I’m hoping I can get pointed in the right direction. I’ve already been doing some research and I’ve been lead to SparkFun which seems to have a ton of really cool stuff, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything that’s available.
I have a 15 month old son who isn’t all that interested in regular toys. He does play with them occasionally but seems to be more interested in flipping switches, pushing buttons, etc. So I’m thinking of building a panel with various toggle switches, rockers, buttons, etc that engage RGD LEDs and possibly make beeping sounds like a telephone keypad (he loves playing with the cordless phone).
So where would I begin? There are a lot of different Arduino boards and I’m not sure what would be sufficient.
Would I need one Arduino board per function? So one board to control the lighted buttons, another board to control the keypad for sound? For controlling one single color LED with one switch/button, I know that can be a simple circuit.
I have some soldering experience but I would rather go solderless so I can possibly expand this board in the future. I would also need to hide the Arduino boards and wires underneath the panel so only the LEDs and buttons/switches are available to him. I’m planning on building an angled box to contain everything.
FWIW you’d only need 1 Arduino, probably an Uno, to do all the kinds of things you’ve mentioned. You could run out of I/O pins at some point, though there are ways to expand the Uno, using various Break out Boards (BoB) and Arduino “shields”.
There are arduino monome clones out there… they would be useful in learning how to control matrices of LEDs and buttons simultaneously.
I’ll have to look at doing something similar with Arduino but on a much smaller scale and with more LED colors, but this is pretty much what I was thinking. Thank you for this!
FWIW you’d only need 1 Arduino, probably an Uno, to do all the kinds of things you’ve mentioned. You could run out of I/O pins at some point, though there are ways to expand the Uno, using various Break out Boards (BoB) and Arduino “shields”.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll look at this. I should look at the various types of boards and the difference between Arduino and Sparkfun’s Redboards.
How can do this as solderless? Are there adapters/connectors that can attach to the tips of the wires to make them solderless?
… to put most things together. Regular “hook up” wire, stripped and tinned on the ends also works. I’d be worried about reliability of solderless connections inside a shaken and tossed toy though.
Mee_n_Mac:
I’d be worried about reliability of solderless connections inside a shaken and tossed toy though.
Very good point. My son likes to throw and drop his toys randomly. I was thinking going solderless would allow me to change and expand the toy in the future. Looks like I might have to rethink the overall design a bit.
Did you ever build this? I want to make one for my 14 month old that is fascinated with the tactile feedback of buttons and switches. I’m curious which components work the best for toddler use.
I’m thinking the large led’s, panel mount buttons & switches and a project box of some sort. Just can’t narrow down which of each.
I have made two switch boxes to date, and for what it’s worth, I ended up going the bluntly simple method of omitting a controller.
I got my switches and covers from MPJA.com, as well as the LED holders. I bought a variety of flashing LEDs (I think it was a variety pack from one of the electronic stores. I got an aluminum enclosure from Fry’s, then started mounting switches and lights. Used several 12v automotive switches (for illumined lights), and used an orbital sander to make a nice surface finish. I then ‘ugly’ hard wired the resistors and wires in whatever chains I wanted.
One was for my 2 year old son who still has fun with it 2 years later, and the other was for my cousin’s wife, who wanted a ‘death ray’ to point at other drivers on the road :lol: The main difference on hers was the addition of a ‘voice recorder’ from radio shack with a sound effect when the ‘fire’ button was pressed. Both boxes worked well with 9v batteries for power, which is easier to replace than a heap of 1.5v when my son forgets to turn it off.
A note about the illuminated switches: I goofed a little and used an incandescent illuminated switch for the power on my son’s toy. All the LEDs combined didn’t add up to half the power consumption of the single power switch.
Features I didn’t mention: directional LEDs light up the wall away from the user for added effect (instead of possibly unsafe laser). A relay set up as a buzzer on one button (only issue being that it messes with the flash pattern of some of the LEDs).
Features I wanted to add but didn’t yet: A small fan to blow back at the user’s face. A binary to hex converter and 7 segment display (I have 16 LEDs and switches in a row at the bottom I was going to try to teach him binary with, but didn’t get it done).
