Digital Protractor

Hello~

I have a 9 yrs old son who is interested in playing with Arduino. I got him a Arduino Starter Kit few weeks ago and he finished few projects in the booklet.

Now, he is expanding what he knows and would like to build a device that simply shows an angle. Actually it's much more than that but I think what he wants to do requires 3 different topics. He visualized it as TV Antenna that changes direction to certain angle by a mobile phone. So, I told him there are 3 things he needs to figure out: 1. digital protractor, 2. motor mechanism to turn the device 0-180 degree 3. send/receive signals to device from/to mobile device. He would like to use it like controlled CCTV camera with GoPro. Attached is what I drew after listening to his idea for the first part.

In the kit, there are a tilt sensor and a LCD Display. After reading few posts here and there, I got him a 3-axis gyroscope + accelerometer.

Since I do not know anything about this or haven't done anything related to this, I have to really learn to teach / guide him to right direction. So, I'm turning to Arduino Gurus to get some help.

Thank you in advance,

do you really need the accuracy of a protractor? for a T.V. antenna???

Why not just set-up a gimbal (if you think you need 2d positioning) or a single stepper/servo (for 1d positioning) and rely on offset from zero after initial configuration/calibration?

123Splat:
do you really need the accuracy of a protractor? for a T.V. antenna???

Why not just set-up a gimbal (if you think you need 2d positioning) or a single stepper/servo (for 1d positioning) and rely on offset from zero after initial configuration/calibration?

Thanks for the reply.
He like to move it (from mobile phone) to 15 degree inclement (0 - 180 degree). Also, once he understand how it can be done, he can use imagination to build other things. I don't think it is that complex if I know what component needs and what each component does. I need some guidelines and examples in easy-to-understand words. :slight_smile: