New but searching for help

Hi all,
I'm sorry to post an all encompassing question like this. But I would really like to build a simple unit by Monday, one which alternates between shining a "blue" led/light, and playing fire sounds, and a "red" led/light, playing water sounds. Or two lights, on/off would work too. Does anybody know a "list" of these parts, all inclusive?

I'm posting in the forums because I have a time constraint, the only experience I have in robotics is lego mindstorms years ago, but I know Java, Objective-C, and C pretty well, and have an OK understanding of how computers work, I passed a general overview of computers class, I know nothing. I know nothing on how to put together an arduino system, I'd heard about it so I knew to come here, but I still read the "start here" post to see what that is.

The resources are probably out there in guides but I don't think I will accomplish my goal that soon, which is what I'm going to try to do, but if anybody has any helpful things they could say to me I would appreciate it in the greatest. (I'm also choosing arduino because it seems like it has great expandibility for future projects.)

If anybody, if it is possible/suffice to say simply what I need and what those things are so I could look them up, it would be of great help.

Thanks so much,
Finley

It says I am offline, but I assure you I am here.

Two leds and two resistors between 220 and 1000 ohms for the lights.

Adafruit shield for realistic .mp3 sound effects: Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit [v1.1] : ID 94 : $22.00 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

Your schedule is realistic for someone who has all the parts on hand and has done it before. For a newbie, the arduino and lights would be a good weekend project. Add the sound effects later. (You can do primitive sound effects with a "piezo beeper" and another resistor. Search the forums.)

Quality, features, date. Pick two.

-br

Thanks so much! That's incredibly helpful I will start looking for parts.

I combine this with any basic arduino set?

Finley

You're welcome. Yes, any basic arduino set should do. In fact, most Arduino sets will come with the LEDs, the resistors, and a buzzer or two, and a breadboard to wire everything up on. I should have mentioned the breadboard. Solderless breadboards make experimenting very easy. Oh, and some jumper wires...

The shield kit requires soldering to assemble, so it's a project with a skills learning project built in. Not to mention budget for a soldering iron.

It would be worth cutting your teeth on a smaller learn-to-solder project first because it's not uncommon to damage your first board a little bit while you're getting the hang of it. Maybe something like this: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10546

-br

Thank you so much! I see what you mean, I'll do some practice first and stick to the LEDs and breadboards for learning. Thanks so much for your help.
-f

Well with a date of Monday you need to buy locally. If you live in the USA, Radio Shack might be an option: RadioShack.com Official Site - America's Technology Store

I would imagine get two of these, one for the fire sounds and one for the police sounds, but it doesn't seem to work too well with the Arduino.

If you had more time, this might be an interesting way to solve the problem. I just got one from ebay, but I haven't had time to build it yet: http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,117009.0.html.

Thanks for your reply,

I went to radio shack and got an arduino and the audio shield they had on hand- Seeed's music shield.

It appears to just plug into the arduino without soldering, but it doesn't leave me any ports. Is there anything left to power two LEDS? I've tried connecting the bread board but the audio unit takes up the "grounding" slot- does the music shield need this? Am I looking at this the right way?

Thanks,
Finley

FinleySumner:
Thanks for your reply,

I went to radio shack and got an arduino and the audio shield they had on hand- Seeed's music shield.

It appears to just plug into the arduino without soldering, but it doesn't leave me any ports. Is there anything left to power two LEDS? I've tried connecting the bread board but the audio unit takes up the "grounding" slot- does the music shield need this? Am I looking at this the right way?

Thanks,
Finley

According to the directions at ladyada, the r9, r10, led1, and led2 are for installing LEDs and resistors: Audio Shield for Arduino - FAQ

Thanks for your reply, I don't have the waveshield but I did look up the wiki for the music shield by seeds and it said:
( Music Shield V1.0 | Seeed Studio Wiki )

D8 - Used for Green Led instructions(could be used for your own application if the switch is not used).
D9 - Used for Red Led instructions(could be used for your own application if the switch is not used).

Just for tomorrow I'd like to use blue and red, so I'm guessing that I can solder an led to red and a blue led to that green slot and then find a way to code it?

Thanks again,
Finley

p.s. I'm still a little unfamiliar with shields, I wasn't aware that they would use so many ports on the arduino, are there ways people go around this, so if one would like to use many shields?

I was scrounging around at my local radioshack looking for some capacitors.
They had on the shelf a paralax shield to play audio with a sd slot on it. It looks to be pin compatible to uno. best of all it only uses a couple of digital pins, The jist of it is you put the sound on the sd and call the sound with i2c or serial, the device plays the sound called while the duino goes on to do other things. My partner in tinkering is working on geocash gadgets that use a similar device. Bought off of ebay.

The arduino due is capable of the whole process with no added devices just confined by the limit of flash ram for program and data, however due is not a good platform for a beginner as the software and libraries are not in place. Support is also limited and not much in the way of books.

The uno has been the defacto standard for some time documentation is fabulous there really is not much that uno can not do or more like has not done. But to play sounds other than basic beeps and buzzes requires a shield. I also have seen at a make fair someone had a uno making a digital pin high supplying power to a hallmark card sound device that had been re purposed. by simply supplying power to the tiny chip with one digital pin wrote high and a ground.

Have fun this is not supposed to be work,

James

Thanks. I have the Seeed's music shield, and it looks feature packed but yea it takes up most of the Uno.

I've been able to get the alternating lights to work, I'm having trouble "software installing" Seeed's music shield.

It says,
"Download the portpins.h file and replace the default portpins.h file of Arduino-0018
program.
The default portpins.h file path is:
arduino-0018/hardware/tools/avr/include/avr"

Except that I am running a mac and I don't see the folder "hardware tools" inside the arduino folder. Libraries, and my project folder I saved there yes, but only those.

Do you happen to know what this means or how I could get around this? The website with this information is here:

Thanks,
Finley

Mack user info. Take the mack place in commode and pull chain, well no just instal wm ware install linux of choice preferably debian, ubuntu, or fedoracore, enjoy free software for life, put the pc-mac argument far far behind you. Nothing to buy ever not from Steve (bless him) or Wild Bill.

free your mind,

James

I switched to a windows 8 partition hopefully things will run smoother but the arduino uno driver is already blocked by the system on 8 so I have to follow a bunch of steps around that the hopefully this will run, and yes linux one day...heard its practically a perfect science now.

I've been trying to get the Music Shield module to work. After finding some bugs on the internet, WProgram instead of Arduino.h, the wrong libraries and versions, and many people having problems, I'm going to try to find another audio module to do this. Someplace that will be open tomorrow I still have the morning.

Got it to work with another users code. Ordered mp3 trigger v2 for future products.