This is my first time posting here and I have never used an Arduino... I'm looking for a bit of direction from the Forum.
My project involves pouring paint onto a canvas using some type of mechanic regulation to control the amount of pours. I haven't decided exactly on how I want to trigger the apparatus I'm making to do the pour, but I want it to be interactive with a person using it... First idea, it would be great if I could make an app for a mobile phone that would send triggers to the apparatus to pour the paint, either via wifi or bluetooth. Is this possible, which arduino would I need and where would I begin to learn how to get started?... Second idea for the interactive portion is using something along the lines of an Xbox Kinect and have some sort of motion that is sensed trigger the pours back to the apparatus. Again, is this possible, which arduino would I need and where would I begin to learn how to get started?
@xl97 Thanks for the reply… Your completely right, I haven’t worked out all the steps I need to get to the end yet. I guess I wanted to get a comment like yours to start to understand how big of a project I’m taking on and feasibility.
With the wifi or bluetooth sending signals to the arduino, how does that happen, or how could that happen… through an app? text message? is there any other way?
also, how do I get an email sent to me when someone replies to this post? I didn’t even know you replied until I logged on and had to search for my post… I feel like that is the default on all the other forums I have signed up for
Thanks again for explaining a few of the different options using mobile signals... I had also never heard of the MIT App Inventor, it looks like something I could deff benefit from being a noob.
I have another question... I agree with you on trying to break down this project into smaller projects and solve those first.... I found this tutorial on how to create a "shot bot" liquor pouring machine using a pump. I think using a pump would be great to get my mixture of paint to pour out of a tube and onto my canvas. But, I don't think the pump in the tutorial will work for paint, it looks as though it will only work for liquids with a viscosity similar to water.... Do you know of a pump that I could use with an arduino to pump the paint? I would more than likely be pumping at least two different colors and would pump them separately, so I would need two pumps at minimum.
This is the tutorial I was referring to
In the comments someone suggested using a peristaltic pump instead of the pump in the video to pump vegetable glycerin, which would be closer to the viscosity of the paint I'm trying to pump.
Oh... also still not sure which arduino to use for something like this.... I'm thinking eventually of triggering the pump to pour the paint using a Kinect instead of a mobile signal like wifi or bluetooth.