Hi there looking for a bit of help

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi all

I am currently doing a fairly simple (I hope) Arduino project for University. I'm entirely new to Arduino and frankly struggling a little bit. What I want to do is essentially make a servo motor move when a motion sensor is activated. The servo will be used to pull the trigger of a nerf gun so it will fire automatically when motion is detected. I already have the servo rigged to the gun trigger and I can get the servo to work on it's own however I have hit a wall with using the motion sensor.

Here is a list of what I have access to in order to do this:

Arduino Uno Board (which came with wires, LED's and a USB A to B Cable)
Breadboard
Servo Motor
P/N 1111 Motion Sensor (form phidget - Motion Sensor - 1111_0 at Phidgets )

any help would be appreciated as I am next to useless with this at the moment. I've been going through tutorials but I need to submit a working code by Monday, will be working on it over the weekend but mostly i'm just curious if this is even possible with the components I have to hand.

Thanks

2

You look to have all the right bits, but you need to post your code.

3

Not sure if we can get you going by Monday, but more info would help.

  • Do you have Arduino running on your computer?
  • Can you run example programs?
  • Do you understand how to connect and control servos?
  • Do you understand how to connect and read the sensor?

If I understand the sensor, it puts out 2.5V when there is no movement and the voltage is higher or lower when there is movement. That will be easy to read. I think the Uno can supply enough 5V current to control the servo, but if it is a high power servo or needs a lot of torque to push the trigger it might cause the board to reset.

I don't see any major problems, except the short time frame. Let us know where you are having problems and we'll help.

4

I think the Uno can supply enough 5V current to control the servo

Not really. I wouldn't recommend it.