My 7th grade science fair project was titled "Robot Wall Sensors,
Light versus Sound". The purpose of this experiment is to find
which sensor (infrared light or Ultrasonic sound) detects walls
more acurately. For my science fair experiment, I built a test
apparatus that would measure distance using both infrared and
ultrasound. I programmed a Basic BS2p Stamp to do the distance
measurements.
For the ultrasonic, I used a Daventech SRF04 Ultrasonic Range Finder. It provides me the time it takes the sound to travel to the object and back. I multiply this time by the speed of sound and divide by two (for the echo) to get the distance measurement to the object.
For the infrared, I used a detuning method to measure the distance. The receiver expects the IR light to be flashing on and off at 40KHz. I change the transmitted frequency using a NE555 oscillator. The Stamp controls the frequency of the NE555 by using a DS1267 digital potentiometer. I calibrated the DS1267 numbers to the distance. I then used the calibration numbers inside the program to output the measured distance for any object.
My 6th grade science fair project was titled "Wood Stove Heat Distribution".
The purpose of this experiment is to find out how to distribute the heat
from a wood stove (fireplace) though out the room evenly. For my experiment
I built a test apparatus to automatically measure the temperature from 8 evenly
spaced thermometers. The thermometers are spaced 1.5 feet from each
other attached to a 12 foot stick. The Stamp reads the temperature ans stores
the values in a memory. When done, the Stamp can be disconnected from
the apparatus and hooked up to a PC so that the data can be transfered and
plotted. The apparatus is a temperature recorder that saves heat measurements
from 8 temperature sensors.
Last updated on 7/11/02 by Will Plachno