New to Arduino, Project Requires 5 different Sensors – Please Help

I have been assigned a project that requires using an Arduino with five sensors. I have never worked with Arduino before and have no idea how to start. Using five sensors in one device is confusing me even more. Please help and recommend what I can build.

Welcome to the forum

Which Arduino board do you have and which sensors are you using ?

school homework ?

Please read How to get the best out of this forum and post accordingly

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you should start by drawing up a requirements-specification this should give you an idea of the processor requirements in terms of computing power, memory (flash and SRAM), IO (I2C, SPI, GPIO, Canbus, ADCs, DACs, etc), WiFi/Bluetooth/LoRa connectivity etc
you then select a microcontroller to meet the requirements allowing some room for expansion (when prototype is operational end-users always ask for more functionality)

Why? Think how many sensors your smartphone has in one device!

Probably the easiest would be 5x LDR light sensors. You would need 5x LDR plus 5x 10K resistors. Connect these in pairs as voltage dividers to 5x analog input pins of the Arduino.

I have a hunch it has to be 5 DIFFERENT sensors, but maybe not.

Who would assign such a task to an unqualified person?
If you must do this, start with the built in examples under Basic then move on to the other 10 categories. Another good resource for beginners is the book 'Arduino Cookbook'

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Well, it does not say that in the original post, and I would expect something as important as that to be mentioned. Wouldn't you agree? :wink:

Absolutly, but since the teacher was ignorant enough to assign a task that the student has little chance of completing without major help I naturally assumed that it was 5 different sensors. I hope we will find out but I am not optimistic.

But it does in the topic title...

Oh no! I'm really embarrassed.

Apologies @saikat0x9

Ok, so...

  1. LDR for light
  2. TMP36 or similar for temperature
  3. Resistive force sensor
  4. Piezo sensor for sound
  5. Hall sensor for magnetic fields

You give lots of credit to the student there… we might not know the full story…

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Tommy would say;
(1) hearing - buzzer
(2) seeing - LED_BUILTIN
(3) smelling - heat sensor DHT
(4) tasting - liquid/moisture
(5) feeling - tap sensor

See me, hear me, smell me, taste me.

We’re not gonna take it.

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This is like a cooking class telling you to bake a cake and use 5 ingredients. With that information what type of cake would you bake, what are the ingredients and why ?

Is this a school project? Sensors generally measure something, what do you need to measure? What accuracy is needed? What is the schedule? What is the scope of the project? Are there any restrictions? What resources do you have (IE scope, VOM, soldering etc)? Without this basic information giving you a proper answer is just a lucky guess.

The first and probably the most important is get a copy of the Arduino Cookbook and at least skim it before proceeding with your project, that will save you lots of time and money.

You have been given advice by others in this post, they are valid and need you to answer the questions. I asked AI how many Arduinos there are and got this answer: There isn’t a single exact number. Depending on how you count, there are dozens of official Arduino boards and hundreds if you include retired, regional, and third-party variants. How can we guess which one you are looking at?