Week 4 Progress

 I have gotten my software to work thus far. I have decided to use the tone() function on Arduino that allows for when a certain frequency range is read in from the analog input, it can be converted and then played on the vibrating motor using the tone() function. I have gotten consistent and correct results when simply running the code, however, my current problem is getting the code and the hardware to line up and work in unison. When using this code with a single motor, it worked great. As soon as I tried to implement multiple motors, the hardware became unresponsive. Below is a picture of the current circuitry which is a little messy and unorganized at this point but will be cleaned up in following weeks:

I have been working with the conversion factor using the map function to try and get the frequency into a range that works for getting the motors to be reliably vibrating.

My goals for this week and the following week is to get the vibrating motors to only vibrate when their specific frequency range is accessed - meaning that when the lower frequencies are accessed, the vibrating motor assigned to that output pin vibrates and the other vibrating motors not associated with the low frequencies stop vibrating. I am very close to getting this working but will need to meet with some professionals to ensure that I have all the wiring correct and the vibrating motors working accordingly before moving on to finishing the development (soldering) of the hardware.

In terms of user testing, I have some friends progressively feeling the motors as I am working on the development of the product and have had others make comments about their worry that the vibrating motors may not be as strong when felt through the fabric. I believe that they will be given my previous testing and prototypes I have done around that area of the project but I have my doubts as well.

UPDATE

I have now gotten the code and the vibrating motors to work according to how it should based off of the algorithm I have written. I chose to go in a different way than using the tone function. It works great for using speakers as the output but not as well with using vibrating motors. I decided to use an analogRead and analogWrite function to allow for the motors to be told when to be off and when to be on and vibrating. I have yet to get the vibrating motors to not vibrate when no music is playing but since there is voltage passing through, it is getting a reading from analogRead and therefore thinking that it should be playing something on the vibrating motors. In the video below, you will see the vibrating motors vibrating at different times because of the different frequency ranges each motor is representing. In addition, you can see the Serial on Arduino that says when the input is a low, middle, or high frequency which then tells the Arduino which vibrating motor to play on. The wiring is exactly the same, the software is the only thing that changed: