Author: Yuening Bai

To achieve my project, I need to make capacitive sensor connects to Arduino IDE, then to processing and processing to twitter. There are two libraries to support my code: processing.serial and twitter4j (http://twitter4j.org/en/index.html)

The main function of my project is to get the sensor controls when to send twitter, so I started with setting up Twitter API. I tested with using keypressed to Tweet.

Then I tried to Tweet with a button. Here is the part I got problem with. I made Arduino IDE send a string to processing “YES” everytime the button is pressed. Processing can receive and println in the console but cannot tweet with this command. (I can’t make this work) I think this problem may be caused by the type of data. (It works when I get int values from the capacitive sensor)

After that, I wired up the capacitive sensor. I did the test capacitive sensor first and it works perfectly. But the second time, it wouldn’t show any data in the Arduino IDE. I tried the exact same code and wiring as before but it didn’t work. I changed the resistor, wiring, and breadboard. Luckily it worked in the end.

Paint the box:

Next step:

To improve my project, one of the most important parts is to set a limit/constraint to the data received by Arduino. The value now in the processing is a little bit hard to control. Next, I would use the image taken by the webcam to upload on Twitter. I always want to make a stand-alone device and I figure out I can use Xbee to let Arduino connects to processing wirelessly.

code: https://github.com/yueningbai/final_cattoy

test video:
https://vimeo.com/268033313

Parts & Resources:

Fritzing:

Prototype:

Test the capacity sensor with the cat: it works the same as I touch it. The value is around 65.

Servo is working.

For the final project, I’m thinking of making an interactive toy for my cats.

The main feature would be cats interact with the toy and the camera takes pictures and posts it on a Twitter account. I can check the Twitter account when I miss my cat.

I’ll be using the Arduino as the main board. A toy to attract the cat. Capacity sensor and motion sensor in the camera as the input and detect whether the cat is here. Camera sets on a servo motor to adjust the angle or position. ml5.js to test if the picture has a cat in it. Yun shield on Arduino to connect to Temboo in order to get Twitter API.

hardware:

Arduino, Capacity sensor(cooper tape), camera with built-in motion sensor, servo motor, yun shield(?), wood box

cat face recognition:

https://ml5js.github.io/docs/simple-image-classification-example.html

p5.bot to communicate with Arduino:

https://github.com/sarahgp/p5bots