Student Escape Room Project Needs Help~

Using Arduino Project Guidance
#1

Hi all,
I have a 7th grader who is making an escape room for a unit project. She wants to have participants press buttons in a certain order that correlate to different LED colors in order to "unlock" some sort of clue either on a breadboard-attached LCD screen or a computer program. Example: a participant presses the red, blue, green, then yellow LED buttons in the correct order and then the LCD "unlocks" to display the next clue.

She is working with an Arduino Uno R3. We are wondering how we would connect and program an LCD screen when we do not have very many more open pins to work with now that the LEDs are all connected. What would you recommend? Or is there any way to connect the LED buttons to, say Scratch? We are feeling very confused on how to program this with the components we have. Any help is appreciated!

Thanks:)

#2

Look into an i2c LCD. It will connect with only 4 wires. 2 of which are your power wires.

#3

Thank you! Any advice on how to program the operations?

#4

Are any of the analog pins available? They also can be used as digital inputs.

#5

You can also get an I2C Input / Output expander chip for the push buttons and LED's - use the same wires as the display would

there are also I/O expander chips that are not I2C available, not too hard to use several to choose from

#6

LAURENVP:
Thank you! Any advice on how to program the operations?

When you do a search, I'm sure you'll find more than one good example of how to program it. It really isn't difficult. I know that for certain. Because I did it. And trust me, I'm in no way shape or form an "expert" at this. I'm a complete novice at best.

Edit ....

And, come to think of it, novice might be too high of a title for me as well.

#7

LCD with I2C backpack and the LiquidCrystal library is all you need. Very simple to set up and get the text on your display.

#8