Team U: Daphne Yang, Ethan Pham, Rithik Jain, Michael Kelley

Published November 11, 2020

Quarantine Countdown

Keep track of how many days you've been quarantined with just a simple press of a button!

IntermediateFull instructions provided2 hours305

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Texas Instruments EK-TM4C123GXL TM4C Tiva LaunchPad

Breadboard (generic)

Jumper wires (generic)

7 Segment LED Display, InfoVue

C&K Switches PTS 645 Series Switch

Tilt Switch, SPST

Software apps and online services

Texas Instruments Energia

Story

Team Members

Daphne Yang – dy27

Ethan Pham – elp4

Rithik Jain - rj34

Michael Kelley – mpk7

Introduction

The year is 2020, and COVID-19 is infecting millions of people around the world. The world is in chaos. Masks are mandatory, staying inside has become the cool thing to do, and hand sanitizer has become more valuable than gold. However, school MUST continue. While many universities have resorted to remote Zoom classes, Rice University has made the extremely courageous decision to open its campus for in person classes in the fall semester. Because COVID is a super contagious disease, the CDC recommends a 2-week quarantine period for those who come in contact with infected people. To maintain the safety of the campus community, Rice decided to follow CDC guidelines and do weekly testing on all people who come to campus and put people in quarantine if they come in contact with someone who tests positive. One of our group members, Rithik, was quarantined twice and overstayed his first quarantine because he didn’t have any way to count how many days he had been there! :-( Good thing he had the Quarantine Countdown the second time...

Your home for the next 2 weeks straight!

Interview From the Source

Q: Hey Rithik, I heard you were in quarantine for quite a while! How long exactly?
A: Yes. I was exiled from the outside world for a total of 19 days over two separate quarantines.

Q: How did you get food?
A: On occasion, I did not. When I did, it was delivered to me like I was a caged animal.

Q: So tell me, what kept you sane throughout quarantine?
A: THE QUARANTINE COUNTDOWN. A must-have product during these times. The only thing keeping me going was a 7 segment display telling me how much time I had left.

Q: How was the experience overall?
A: Terrible, but the first one was far worse than the second. After my first quarantine, I acquired a Quarantine Countdown to prepare for the future.

Q: How did you get this Quarantine Countdown?
A: The ingenuity of Team U. It’s the perfect product. They made such an efficient and cheap design that EVERY quarantined student was able to get one!

Q: Why don’t you use a calendar instead?
A: Unsafe. Papercuts.

How To Use

Each morning, press the button to decrement the counter (which starts at 14, or E in hexadecimal) by 1, indicating a day spent in quarantine. Once the display hits 0, you’re free! (If you press the button again at this point, the display will reset to E)

If you get incredibly unlucky and need to restart your quarantine, just tilt the Quarantine Countdown and press the button again! The display will reset to E. Have fun with your extended quarantine! :-)

Watch the Quarantine Countdown in action!

Gotta start over? Just tilt!

Code

QuarantineCountdown

// QuarantineCountdown

// 2D array to display particular letters and numbers
byte seven_segment_digits[15][7] = { { 0,0,0,0,0,0,1 }, // display '0'
                                     { 1,0,0,1,1,1,1 }, // display '1'
                                     { 0,0,1,0,0,1,0 }, // display '2'
                                     { 0,0,0,0,1,1,0 }, // display '3'
                                     { 1,0,0,1,1,0,0 }, // display '4'
                                     { 0,1,0,0,1,0,0 }, // display '5'
                                     { 0,1,0,0,0,0,0 }, // display '6'
                                     { 0,0,0,1,1,1,1 }, // display '7'
                                     { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 }, // display '8'
                                     { 0,0,0,1,1,0,0 }, // display '9'
                                     { 0,0,0,1,0,0,0 }, // display 'A'
                                     { 1,1,0,0,0,0,0 }, // display 'b'
                                     { 0,1,1,0,0,0,1 }, // display 'C'
                                     { 1,0,0,0,0,1,0 }, // display 'd'
                                     { 0,1,1,0,0,0,0 }  // display 'E'
                                   };

// initialize states
const int buttonPin = 19;
const int tiltPin = 18;
int breadboardButtonState = 0;
int tiltState = 0;
int count = 15;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  // initialize the breadboard push button pin as an input:
  pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT_PULLUP);
  pinMode(tiltPin, INPUT_PULLUP);

  pinMode(3, OUTPUT); // set segment A as output
  pinMode(4, OUTPUT); // set segment B as output
  pinMode(5, OUTPUT); // set segment C as output
  pinMode(6, OUTPUT); // set segment D as output
  pinMode(7, OUTPUT); // set segment E as output
  pinMode(8, OUTPUT); // set segment F as output
  pinMode(9, OUTPUT); // set segment G as output
  pinMode(10, OUTPUT); // set dot as output
  for(int i = 3; i < 10; i++) { // start with segments off
    digitalWrite(i, HIGH);
  }
  digitalWrite(10, HIGH);  // start with the dot off
}

void loop() {

  tiltState = digitalRead(tiltPin);
  // reset the countdown if the switch is tilted
  if(tiltState == 1){
    count = 15;
  }
    
  breadboardButtonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
  // reset the countdown if the button is pressed when the
  // display reads 0
  if(count == 0){
    count = 15;
  }
  // if the button is pushed, change the display
  if (breadboardButtonState == 0) {
    int pin = 3;
    // set the segments
    for (int segCount = 0; segCount < 7; ++segCount) {
      digitalWrite(pin, seven_segment_digits[count-1][segCount]);
      ++pin;
    }
    // change the next number to be displayed
    count--;
    // delay before checking for another button press
    delay(200);
  }
}

Quarantine Countdown