Wireless Gesture Controlled Robot

Contributors:

Understanding Your Circuit

Wireless Glove Controller

The connection for this project should be the same as the initial circuit. The only differences are the connections for the accelerometer and analog reference pin as shown in the diagram below.

Wireless Gesture Controller Circuit Diagram

Analog Accelerometer

Since the ADXL335 requires 3.3V, we'll need to connect the VCC pin to 3.3V. To complete the connection for power, you will need to connect GND to GND. Then for the x, y, and z pins, you'll need to connect them to pin 2, 1, and 0, respectively.

Note: An analog accelerometer was chosen for simplicity. However, any digital accelerometer (like the MMA8452Q included in the RedBot kit) can work with the setup as long as you adjust the connection and code to communicate with the sensor. Make sure that the accelerometer is low-G so that it is sensitive enough to detect motion.

Configuring AREF

Since the ADXL335 is 3.3V, we'll need to connect the Arduino's AREF pin to the 3.3V pin. This will configure the reference voltage used for the analog output from the accelerometer. As a result, we can measure smaller voltages (i.e. your 3.3V output) with the best resolution on a 5V Arduino.

⚡ Warning! Make sure to check out this note from Arduino before powering and uploading code to your board!

Don’t use anything less than 0V or more than 5V for external reference voltage on the AREF pin! If you’re using an external reference on the AREF pin, you must set the analog reference to EXTERNAL before calling analogRead(). Otherwise, you will short together the active reference voltage (internally generated) and the AREF pin, possibly damaging the microcontroller on your Arduino board.