Hi all,
I'm in my 4th and final year of university and I'm currently working on my honours project. I'm looking to gamify peak flow testing. I have a game in unity all set up and I'm looking to use an arduino as an input.
For anyone not familiar with peak flow testing, it's a test designed to measure your lung strength and capacity. It's performed by blowing into a device known as a spirometer (see pic below). The device usually consists of a long tube that you blow into, moving a dial up, giving you a score. The higher the score the better. For my project however, I don't need a whole lot of accuracy in the test as it's just a proof of concept and a lot of it can be faked. So I was thinking of using some kind of turbine or windmill-type setup that the user would blow into with the arduino reading how fast it's spinning and giving that as a number I can then take into unity.
The issue I'm having right now is just planning out what parts to use. I can't use a motor since the fan needs to be free spinning. What could I use to best accomplish this? I was thinking about using an accelerometer but I'm not sure this would work as the fan needs to be fairly small.
Failing that, is there any other way to detect how hard someone is blowing air out?
Cheers.