Published March 20, 2023

Project #9 Motorized Pinwheel

Learn how to set up a pinwheel with a servo Motor.

BeginnerShowcase (no instructions)2 hours148

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Breadboard (generic)

Arduino UNO

SG90 Micro-servo motor

9V battery (generic)

Power MOSFET N-Channel

Resistor 10k ohm

1N4007 – High Voltage, High Current Rated Diode

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Story

In this project we used the arduino to hook up a motor and make a spinning pinwheel. Because using a motor would require more power than just the power connected through the USB, we also had to have a 9V battery along with the snap to attach it to the board, to give the motor the extra power that it needs to run as hard as it needs to. We hooked up the breadboard to power and ground as per usual, then added a switch to the board which will be used to activate the pinwheel once everythinng is hooked up. The switch is powered and connected to Digital Pin #2, and grounded with a 10kOHM resistor. We place the transistor down, and connect it to power, and ground, while also connecting it towards the diode, Digital Pin #9, and the ground. We hook up our 9V battery to the other side of power and ground and the diode that is also connected to the transistor. With the Circuit set up, we move onto the code. This is a pretty simple code, where we make constants for the switch and a variable to have the different states of the motor for when we press the switch or when it is not pressed. In the setup, we declare the pins for the constants. Then, in the loop, We make the if statement to switch between the switch being pressed and not.

PinWheel Code

const int switchPin = 2;  // the number of the switch pin
const int motorPin = 9;   // the number of the motor pin

int switchState = 0;  // variable for reading the switch's status

void setup() {
  // initialize the motor pin as an output:
  pinMode(motorPin, OUTPUT);
  // initialize the switch pin as an input:
  pinMode(switchPin, INPUT);
}

void loop() {
  // read the state of the switch value:
  switchState = digitalRead(switchPin);

  // check if the switch is pressed.
  if (switchState == HIGH) {
    // turn motor on:
    digitalWrite(motorPin, HIGH);
  } else {
    // turn motor off:
    digitalWrite(motorPin, LOW);
  }
}

Credits

Luis Estades

13 projects • 1 follower

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Project #9 Motorized Pinwheel

Project #9 Motorized Pinwheel

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Code

PinWheel Code

Credits

Luis Estades

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