New To Micro Microcontrollers Project

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tc61
 
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Joined: Mon May 23, 2011 1:38 pm

New To Micro Microcontrollers Project

Post by tc61 »

Hello,
I would like to do a microcontroller project with my son. We are both totally new to the hobby. So I am looking for suggestions on hardware and or software to do the job and any other help that anyone could supply.

The project is a recycling day reminder box.

Basically it will be 2 LEDs to indicate what type of recycling for that day.

1. Select Day of Week on a 7 position rotary switch 1-Sun, 7-Sat
2. Select the Next up coming event on a 2 position switch 1-Paper 2-Cans (To know where to start from).
3. Look to a calendar to know how many days away the event is in the future.
4. 8 hours prior to the day of the event flash the proper LED for that event.
5. If a button on the box is pushed the indicator will go out until next event 7 days later.
6. If button is not pushed after 8 hours it will automatically go out as not to drain battery.
7. 7 days later the the opposite LED event will happen.
8. The unit will run on a 3.7v battery
9. The unit must run without the internet.

I was thinking to use a ESP32 Dev board for the project but am not sure if these unit would be able to have a internal clock/calendar where the internet is not needed.

As I said I am a total newbie to this but my son is interested so we will both learn it together.

So any suggestions hardware/software would be greatly appreciated as to the best chance of success on our first project.

thank you in advance

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dastels
 
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Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2015 3:22 pm

Re: New To Micro Microcontrollers Project

Post by dastels »

This isn't a very computationally demanding project so pretty much anything will work. One of the Feather boards will do well because of the onboard LiPo battery support with builtin recharging. You can add a RTC board to handle accurate time/date keeping. If you go with a Feather, there's https://www.adafruit.com/product/3028.

You don't mention what programming language you plan to use. My suggestions would be a Feather M0 Express (basic or express) if you plan to use C++/Arduino. If you want to use (or have the option to use) CircuitPython, I'd go with a Feather M4 Express. You said no internet so an ESP board would be overkill.

Dave

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tc61
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon May 23, 2011 1:38 pm

Re: New To Micro Microcontrollers Project

Post by tc61 »

Thank You Dave

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