Hi, I'm Linda and I'm very excited to be one of the eight competitors in this challenge! Jeej!
The idea I have for this project is to make a toy camera/colour game for small kids. While in graduate school I used to make games for kids in artmuseums and musical games for kids in primary school. Although I still make musicprojects, it's been quite a while since I made an actual game. So when this challenge came along, I thought off making a new game. This time one for small children (like 2-3 years old) so they can enjoy learning and experiencing the world of colours around them.
Below you can see the first sketches I made indicating how the camera will look.
The toy camera is held in front of a colourfull object, for example a green apple. When the 'shutter' is pushed, the two bright LEDs in the front view are used as a flashlight to make sure the colour sensor can identify the colour even when there's not enough light in the room. That exact colour is then transfered to the NeoPixel in the viewfinder on the back of the camera. As you can see in the picture, there are three more Pixels on the back. One of these will have the same colour as the viewfinderPixel (and the apple), the other two will have diffferent colors. By touching the conductive fabric underneath the right colour, you'll hear a happy buzer to indicate you choose the right colour. If you happen to choose the wrong one, you'll hear a different buzzer and you can try again.
This Flora Challenge will be a challenge indeed. I have no experience whatsoever with making something with electronics. I do have some skills with a sewingmachine and making wearables, so I think the toy camera in itself won't be a problem. But it'll be fun to see if I can actually make my way in the unknown territory of electronics! The Adafruit website indicated that the Flora should be extremely beginner-friendly, as it is difficult to destroy the Flora by connecting a battery backwards.. I sooo hope that's true! Off course, I'll do my absolute best not to do anything of the sort. But seen that I'm all new to anything having to do with building electronics, it's good to know I won't be able to destroy my kit too soon
Despite my lack of experience with Arduino, or any type of electronics builing things.. I'm hoping I can make my camera work with putting in a lot of enthusiasm, hard work and a bit of help from my boyfriend
Thanks again to Adafruit and Element14 for letting me participate in this fun challenge! I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone's projects will develop over the next few weeks. There are eight very different projects, from eight very different people, so I think it's gonna be fun to follow everyone's progress while they realize their ideas!
PS: please let me know what you think of my project. Any extra ideas or tips are very welcome! thanks!