Can an Arduino do all this?

Projects General Guidance
1

I have 3 projects I want to tackle and each of them will build upon the last and I'm wondering if an Arduino will be able to handle everything I want to do? I have read a few things about Arduino vs Raspbery Pi and I would prefer to use Arduino but if I'm going to start learning it I want to make sure it will handle what I want to do.

So now for the question. Can an Arduino handle all of the following items in a single project?

  • Ambient light sensor
  • Several LED light strips
  • Play music either in .wav or preferably .mp3
  • Volume control
  • Clock function with day of week control to be set in program
  • Clock/time display
  • Push button for music on/off
  • switch to check on/off value
  • Motion sensor
  • turning on/off a 120v power outlet
  • control a servo motor

If you think it should be able to handle it i'll buy that Getting Started with Arduino book from Make then get the starter kit.

Thank you all in advance.
Mike

2

You will need extra hardware for the MP3 part and the mains switching but other than that is sounds like an Arduino could manage that.

3

Grumpy_Mike:
You will need extra hardware for the MP3 part and the mains switching but other than that is sounds like an Arduino could manage that.

Thanks for the quick reply Mike. Would I need extra hardware if I went with .wav or some other audio format? It's just going to have 2 songs.

Thanks,
Not so grumpy Mike.

4

Yes you would. Without extra hardware you can only get about 3.5 seconds of audio to play on an Arduino Uno.

5

Just looking at your peripheral list, I would guess that you might run out of pins with an Arduino Uno. A Mega would handle it.

6

ok, thank you very much for the info!

I will order that book start learning.

I'm going to order a starter kit as the first 2 project won't have all those components. Once I get to the 3rd project I'll order a Mega for that one.

Thanks again,
Mike

7

BigDaddyO:
ok, thank you very much for the info!

I will order that book start learning.

I'm going to order a starter kit as the first 2 project won't have all those components. Once I get to the 3rd project I'll order a Mega for that one.

Thanks again,
Mike

Or consider using more than one microcontroller for what looks like a pretty full-featured party machine!