Week 7 Assignment: Heartbeat Bunny
Originally, I wanted to make a stuffed animal I called “Fever Bunny” that would sense the temperature of whoever is holding it and light up with the person has a fever (which I could do by mapping the fever range to match the LED brightness (like we did in class with the potentiometer).
I sewed the bunny by hand (with fabric I used to recover my couch) and sewed three LEDs where the heart would be. Then, I wrote some code that made the LED look like a heart beat (which I think would be soothing). But, when I tried to incorporate the temperature sensor, I kept getting readings below 0* celsius. I tried a few different resistors in a few different positions – and was able to get an LED to respond – but I couldn’t control the temperature properly so I decided to ditch that sensor.
Instead, I used a photocell to control the brightness of the LED. When the room gets dark, the heart LEDs dim. Now it’s more of a nightlight bunny than a fever bunny, but it’s still soothing!
Here’s a picture of the bunny:
Here’s a picture of Dan interacting with the bunny:
And here’s the video of Dan interacting with the bunny: Video
And here’s a link to the repo.