NEED HELP. Hot Wheels drag racer

Projects Programming
1

Hi everyone. I'm new with arduino's and thought I would start a project that is clearly above my head. I have built a Hot Wheels drag race track that has 4 lanes on a ramp. The track starts with a start button and when that is pressed the servo at the start line opens and and wait 1.5 seconds then close, at that same time a stopwatch starts timing the race. There are 4 photoresistors at the finish line and that tracks the position of the 4 racers on 4 separate 7-segment displays. Also, when the first car passes the finish line it will display the time on another 4 digit 7-segment display. when the race is over i can press a reset button to zero everything out.
I have been able to code the servo dropping and resetting but my abilities end there. Is there any way someone could help me out with the rest? I know it will included booleans and I will be using 47hc595 chips for the 7-segment displays. I know how to wire the chips but I don't understand how to code it all.
My requirements are as follows:
StartButton on pin 2
ResetButton on pin ??
Servo on pin 3
Photoresistors will be on analog pins a1 thru a4
everything else if up in the air.

The attachment is all I have so far.

So how about it?!! Can the Arduino community help??!!

servo2.ino (714 Bytes)

2

kwatts1000:
So how about it?!! Can the Arduino community help??!!

It's not clear what sort of help you want.

If you want someone to write a program for you please ask in the Gigs and Collaborations section of the Forum and be prepared to pay.

If you want to learn to program yourself the examples that come with the Arduino IDE are a good place to start. There are also many online tutorials.

Although not written for a complete beginner you may get some ideas for organizing your program in Planning and Implementing a Program

Build your project by starting with little programs that allow you to learn ho to do each part. Detect a button, detect something with the LDR, make something appear on a display etc etc.

If you develop your project bit by bit and have a problem with one part then it will be much easier to give help with a specific question.

...R

3

and thought I would start a project that is clearly above my head.

I wanted to learn to jog, so I enrolled in the Boston Marathon.

Now, does THAT make sense? Neither does picking a project that is far too ambitious. Learn to do the simple stuff, and you'll come to see that it is all (relatively) simple stuff.

Your project is all about a race timer. I really can't see how servo2.ino is a reasonable name for the program.

How is the start switch wired? Why doesn't the pin it is connected to have meaningful name?

    delay(1500); // Wait for 1500 millisecond(s)

Does that comment add ANY value?

      // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
      servo_3.write(pos);

Does that comment add ANY value?

Comments should explain WHY the program is written the way it is, not how the program is written. That's obvious (to most of us).

Look at the state change detection example. You want to move the servo when the start button BECOMES pressed, not when it IS pressed.

Do you REALLY want to drag the servo through its motion? Or should the servo move MUCH faster than you are moving it?

You really need to learn about functions. Your loop function should look like:

void loop()
{
   if(start())
   {
      openGate();
      timeRace();
      closeGate();
   }
}

Then, you can work independently on making sure that the gate is opened properly, that the race is timed properly, that the gate is closed properly, etc.

The timeRace() function will probably call other functions, to report results, for instance.