BubbleViz is an internet-enabled toy bubble gun that uses an Arduino, XBee and ConnectPort to poll a PHP script and check an IMAP server for new messages, upon which the device showers you with a delightful cascade of bubbles.
View it in action:
More information, pictures and code follow!
As you can see, this project more than meets the “looks like a bomb” quota.
Here’s my relevant PHP code (using my modified Email to DB class):
include_once("class.emailtodb_tedb0t.php"); $edb = new EMAIL_TO_DB(); $edb->connect('imap.gmail.com:993', '/imap/ssl/novalidate-cert', 'username@gmail.com', 'password'); echo $edb->getNumNewMessages(); $edb->close(); |
Here’s the pertinent function from the classfile. I’m certain there is a better, more logical way to do this. We can’t use PHP Sessions because Rob’s ConnectPort server doesn’t implement them… maybe I will add that in 
function getNumNewMessages(){ $myFile = "numMessages.txt"; $fh = fopen($myFile, 'r'); $lastNum = intval(trim(fgets($fh))); $currentNumMessages = $this->num_message(); fclose($fh); $fh = fopen($myFile, 'w+'); fwrite($fh, $currentNumMessages); fclose($fh); return $currentNumMessages - $lastNum; } |
And the Arduino code:
// BubbleViz // Bubble Gun Controller // by Ted Hayes <www.liminastudio.com> #include #define PIN_SWITCH 4 #define PIN_MOTOR 12 #define DUR_MAX 3000 Servo myservo; int lastRead = HIGH; long i = 0; int dur = 1000; int durMult = 500; // ms per new emails int curByte; int curVal; int curDur; void setup() { Serial.begin(115200); pinMode(PIN_SWITCH, INPUT); pinMode(PIN_MOTOR, OUTPUT); digitalWrite(PIN_SWITCH, HIGH); // set pullup on pin 2 digitalWrite(PIN_MOTOR, LOW); // motor off //// software serial pinMode(rx,INPUT); pinMode(tx,OUTPUT); digitalWrite(tx,HIGH); myservo.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object myservo.write(80); // reset to "closed" position } void loop() { int switchRead = digitalRead(PIN_SWITCH); if(switchRead == LOW && lastRead == HIGH){ fire(dur); } lastRead = switchRead; if (Serial.available() > 0) { curByte = Serial.read(); curVal = curByte - 48; // "decodes" ASCII number to DEC number if(curVal > 0){ curDur = durMult * curVal; // ms * num of new emails if(curDur > DUR_MAX) curDur = DUR_MAX; fire(curDur); } } // poll web script every n iterations of loop (as opposed to using delay()) if(i > 300000){ Serial.print("http://verge.myftp.org:81/Listereen/emailtodb_v0/check_mail.php"); i=0; } i++; } void fire(int duration){ // trigger gun motor digitalWrite(PIN_MOTOR, HIGH); delay(300); // wait for loop to wet myservo.write(105); // pull loop out delay(duration); // wait for bubbles to blow // reset motor and servo digitalWrite(PIN_MOTOR, LOW); myservo.write(80); } |