Outcome

Intention

Because of the increasement of population floating and migration, many families are separated in different places. Though they will keep in contact at a certain frequency, it's common cases for them to be buried with works, personal relationships and forget the distant relatives. This product can use a non-intrusive way to let people remember their far-away family and convey their sentiment buy only a simple click.

Goal

Use different light color to convey sentiments. The brightness of light will keep changing to vividly represent emotions and create a feeling of connection. When give a strong hit on FSR, the device will play a song according to the melody of lights.

Process

To represent sentiment, with no screen. Light and sound would be appropriate media. The brightening and fading of the light can be used to represent emotions. When force is strong enough, a song will be played with the light keeping brightening.

First, chose right components. I would like to use the color and brightness of light to represent the intensity of sentiment, so NeoPixel would be the perfect choice. However, I only have one NeoPixel light, limited effects can I achieve with this.

Then, since I have no speaker, I chose Piezo Buzzer to play music. And checked the arduino tune to find out the right notes and durations.

Next, I need to decided to set three levels, with the color of white, blue, and  red. Red is the highest level, when achieving a song will be played. The most difficult part is to define the range. I have tried several times but the NeoPixel only light in blue. So I decided to divided the blue light's range into three and assign to white and red. After several experiments, I found the right rang and changed the color successfully.

Components

1. Breadboard
   
2. Particle Argon
   
3. FSR Sensor
   
4. NeoPixel
5. Piezo Buzzer
6. White LED
7. 10 k Resistor
8. USB Micro B Cable
   
9. Jumper Wires
   

My Circuit

I use NeoPixel Ring to represent single NeoPixel light for I didn't find the right component. Also the Particle Agron I found is a little different form the common one. 

My Video

Reflection

Next Steps
Ideally in the next iterations;
1. 6 NeoPixel would be more attractive, especially if they can influence each other;
2. Offer the function to customize the music to users' taste;
3.Build a beautiful container to cover the whole device and disguise the FSR sensor into something users would like to touch frequently, such as a leave or a waving hand;
4. Do some research on material. How transparent, semi-transparent or craved figures can offer diverse light effects.

References and Acknowledgements

Thanks to the help of Professor Daragh and our cute TAs.

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide/the-magic-of-neopixels

https://diotlabs.daraghbyrne.me/docs/working-with-sensors/fsrs/

My Code