Bully Box V2

Hello! Here I will share my project for school! This box really just is a pain for whoever is unfortunate enough to press the button!

When the button is pressed an annoying tone will play until the user presses the button again to turn it back off, however, when a finger moves in to press the button a blade will come up to try and attack the incoming digit!

For this project I used:

• An Arduino Uno
• A tactile Push Button
• A HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance Sensor
• A TG9e Eco Micro Servo
• A TDK Buzzer
• 1 100 kΩ Resistor

• 1 100 kΩ Resistor

• 14 jumper wires

And for the box I used some MDF, and lots of screws and woodglue

Because this was my first project the very first thing I did was exploring how Arduino actually worked.
I already had an idea of what I wanted to make, so i tried some circuits that would let me get to know the different components i was planning on using.

I tried to calculate some distances with the ultrasonic sensor and to make a button toggle the LED attached to it.

I quickly got more confident with how the breadboard worked, and with how the digital pins of the arduino worked.

After I thought I learnt enough of the basics I got started with the project!

Before I started with this project I made some rough scetches for what I wanted to make.

The shape of the box was quickly established, but not every element found in the final product were in my sketches.

Instead of a blade my first idea involved a little hand coming up to block access to the button.

The button was initially also a lot closer to the slot of the blocking object, but after I started putting everything together I realised the slot had to be moved further away from the button to keep the build sturdy and the wires (a little) more organised.

While I would've preferred the button and blade being closer together, since the intention is not necessary to actually block the button, but more to infer the blocking of the button it doesn't really matter too much.

The colors I used for the wiring follow the following pattern:

• Red: 5V
• Black: Ground
• Green: Output
• Yellow: Input

(note: I used 1 white wire instead of a black wire to connect the buzzer because I was out of black wires that were long enough)

While all the functions that Arduino provides look intimidating at first, it was surprisingly easy to get started, I've found the coding to be the easiest part of the process because I didn't have to be scared of my own clumsiness.

You can read the code and the explanation of it in the the file attached below, just make sure you have the Arduino IDE installed.

Oh, and please don't use the code seen in the picture above, because while it shows in rough lines how the code works, it will definitely not run on any machine!

I really tried making the box as durable and strong as possible to avoid anything suddenly breaking. Every piece of the main box is held together with screws and woodglue. Using MDF made it easy to cut and drill into.

The lid of the box has two holes to fit the ultrasonic sensor, a wide slot for the blade to fit through, and a smaller slot to fit the protoboard strip into , along with a small hole for the button wires to fit through.

There is also a hole in the back of the box to connect the arduino with the power supply. I was initially planning on placing a power supply inside of the box but I couldn't find one that gave sufficient power.

I've bundled all red and black wires respectively in heat shrink tubes, and cut the wires that needed a resistor so I could fit it in between the cut ends.

For the button I've used a protoboard as a stand, and bundled the wires in order for them to fit them through the hole in the lid.

To hide the wires leading from the button I reinforced the protoboard with thinner MDF, which made it a lot easier to press the button, instead of just pushing the button back along with the protoboard.

One of my goals was to also make it easy to see what was going on under the lid, so I took that idea and made the lid come up to reveal the guts of the machine! The lid is held together by two tight hinges which keep the lid up for you as you look inside.

As a way to protect both the box itself and the surface it stands on I also added four rubber legs for it to stand on.

Looking back at my first arduino project now I realise how much more intuitive it is than I initially thought.

It was scary to see all these parts in a box, like each part was mocking me for not understanding how to use them.

This is what initially stopped me from making this project sooner, but I pulled through and made something I can be pretty proud of!

Now that I've completed it I think I could've gone for something a lot more complex, but I think having something simple to make creates a lot of room for experimentation.

During the building process I also could've planned it out a lot more, I think that for my next project I'd make a model of what I want to make first, which should make building all the seperate parts a lot more easy.

Documentation is not really one of my strong suits, and I often got so carried away with my build that I forgot to take photos or write down what I had done, but for my next project I want to pay more attention to the whole process of designing a build and to plan out what needs to be done.