countToF

0 The Team: Big Brain Labs

Adam Zawierucha - adz2

Nico Rossi - ncr3

Kaiyu Hernandez - kah13

Nathaniel Hejduk - ndh4

1 Introduction

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten... uh...

But how do we count after that? We've ran out of fingers and there is no way to count beyond that. Not until now. Here at Big Brain Labs™ we have developed ground breaking technology that will revolutionize the way we count. We are quite literally giving you an extra hand:

Our revolutionary technology will let you count break the bounds and count all the way to F! (15 in base 10).

Counting past ten becomes extremely difficult for scientists and engineers without the assistance of technology. But with this new technology we hope to empower scientists and engineers to count beyond amounts humans could ever imagine: 15.

2 The Product: countToF

Our new product is called countToF and has been designed by the most prestigious designers and hardened engineers from Rice University. We have ensured that this technology is a slick as possible and most friendly to users like you.

We implemented a cutting-edge 7 segment display to quickly and reliable display the current count on the bread board. It will display all digits from 0 to F (that is 16 different possibilities!)

Moreover, we incorporated a tilt switch to enable the user to toggle whether or not they want to increment or decrement. If the tilt switch is UP the counter will count up and if it is DOWN it will count down.

3 Hardware

2.0 Components

All you will need is: TI Launch Pad, 7 segment display, tilt switch, TI Breadboard BoosterPack, 11 jumper wires, a way to plug in the board, and will power.

3.1 Build

(1) We based our initial schematic on the schematic provided on Energia's site to properly connect the 7-segment display. You can read it here. This is the base schematic:

This is what it looks like physically:

(2) We then added and properly wired the tilt pin 11 on the booster pack. The schematic to add the tilt switch looks like this:

This is what it looks like physically:

(3) We decided to use the on-board button to streamline the user experience. We used SW1 which is on pin 31.

4 Software

We linked our GitHub repo to this project so you can pull and continue this great project on your own! There are 3 core functions we use.

(1) update_display

This is the arch-stone of our project. It takes in a integer and updates the 7 segment display to display that number.

void update_display( int count ){
  /*
   Inputs: count (integer)
   Outputs: None
   Updates 7-segment display with value of count in hex
  */
  int pin = 3;
  for (int segCount = 0; segCount < 7; ++segCount) {
  digitalWrite(pin, seven_segment_digits[count][segCount]);
  ++pin;
 }
}

(2) setup: this function sets up all the pins and ensures that all the lights are initially off.

(3) loop: this function detects whether the button has been pressed, increments an integer, and calls update_display.

void loop() {
// Read pin states
button_state = digitalRead(31);
switch_state = digitalRead(11);
//Check if state indicates action needs to take place
if (button_state != last && button_state == 0){
// if the state is zero, we increment the count, max at 15
if (switch_state == 0 && count < 15){
count += 1;
}
// Otherwise, we decrement the pin, min at 0
if (switch_state == 1 && count > 0){
count -= 1;
}
//Store old state
last = button_state;
} else if (button_state == 1){
//Store old state
last = button_state;
}
//Update display
update_display(count);
//Wait
delay(1);
}

5 countToF in Action

Imagine all the possibilities. This is our project in action:

6 Future Features

This project has a lot of room for growth. In the next model, our team is considering implementing many new features. Including, but not limited to:

• Counting into the negative numbers. We would use the dot on the 7-segment display to indicate negativity.
• Use two display's to massively increase what we could count up to. We could give you many more hands!
• Use an LED to indicate whether or not the counter will increment or decrement for the next button press.

Maybe you could help Big Brain Labs™ to take this project even further. Stay tuned!