What product to use!

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craigasanford
 
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Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2018 3:11 pm

What product to use!

Post by craigasanford »

There are so many options for microcontrollers and it's really hard to tell what I need. So I'm really just looking for product suggestions.

I'm designing an escape room. Some of the components of the room will be things like "A wizard's gauntlet" or a wand that will activate certain puzzles. Part of this is that some of the components will need to talk to each other. I'm not worried about the programming or wiring - those are things I can figure out on my own. It's the wireless communication bit I'm a little baffled on.

From all my reading here and across the web I appears my main options are Bluetooth, Radio, or IR. Considering things like the Gauntlet will be heavily based on gesture controls for "casting spells" I steered toward the Circuit Playground Express. It seems like it's packed with everything I want all in one handy little board. But can I use the IR to pass things like Gyro data? I've seen the minecraft glove tutorial and the RC car controller with the CPX so I know its possible. Is Radio more reliable? Would I be better off with a Feather? I think BLE is probably not what I want due to the amount of things that need to be talking to each other. In addition, I'd like to cover all the circuits since its a fantasy themed room. Can the IR still transmit and receive if its covered with a semi transparent piece of acrylic or plastic (like some tv remotes)?

Just to better clarify what I'm attempting to do (in case there are better product suggestions) is create a glove that detects 6-10 movement gestures (left,right,up,down) to cast "spells" that effect other microcontrollers such as unlocking a door, changing somethings color, etc. One of the really big things I would like to aim to do is a "telekinesis spell" where after you do the gestures you turn your hand clockwise and counter clockwise to move something you can't otherwise reach (inside an acrylic box). Essentially the glove will send the gryro information to the motor of the object your moving to spin it around. (IE if you were moving a compass when your hand is pointing true north the object points true north. When you point 20 degrees west the object points 20 degrees west).

The other thing I'm sort of stumped on is how far can I push the CPX or feather? Can it handle having 20 different functions for various "spells" based on gestures? Hard to estimate size of the files without just ordering the parts but I have a budget I'm trying to stay within.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: What product to use!

Post by Franklin97355 »

You really need to get some hardware and experiment. There is no way to figure out all the "gotchas" that you will run into without actual hands-on testing. I'd recommend a CPX for the glove and Feathers or Trinkets or ItsyBitsys as needed for controlling your props.

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craigasanford
 
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Re: What product to use!

Post by craigasanford »

Yeah that's sort of what I was thinking. And having spare microcontrollers laying around won't hurt my feelings. I just discovered my nearby Microcenter carries all of Adafruits products so I'm very excited to go grab some stuff and start tinkering!

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: What product to use!

Post by Franklin97355 »

Get back to us as you find things that you need help with. And above all else, have fun.

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