Arduino Wave Shield

Hi Kaylee,

This sounds like a great learning project.  The motion detector should most likely have a high/low level output detecting motion.  Use this change to trigger the playing of the wave file. I like the idea of transferring the wave file from your computer as this will simplify your initial project (you can always add features later).  Learning to solder will be yet another useful skill as you take on more projects later.

Gene

Thanks for the support genebren. Will let you know how I get on! :-)

Hi Kaylee,

If you have some basic Arduino experience, you should be able to accomplish your goal.

Check with the RPi website, there are a number of similar projects to yours, so you can read about how others have solved most of your problems.

There are many sources and video's to show you how to solder.  First rule, heat the parts first, not the solder.  The solder should flow onto the part and you should using it sparingly.  A little bit is better in most cases to a big blob.

You can do your software using Python, which is easy to learn and use.

Why don't you start a blog here on element 14 and that way we can watch what you are doing and provide you with tips as you go along.

Feel free to post questions.

Good luck,

DAB

If recording from computer, make sure when you save your audio file that it matches the criteria: 22KHz 16bit mono Wave (.wav) file and check that the saveAs name of the audio file is compatible. Also check that your SD card is correctly formatted.

Which Arduino wav shield did you purchase ? the Adafruit one ? If so, have you taken a look at the Adafruit site for the documentation on how to solder and use it ?

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-wave-shield-audio-shield-for-arduino?view=all

There is also a more advanced Adafruit product which has microphone support and which may be of interest for a future project:

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-vs1053-mp3-aac-ogg-midi-wav-play-and-record-codec-tutorial?view=all

I recently connected a $2 mp3 player module to a PSoC microcontroller to play recorded audio when a button is pushed.

An arduino would work just as well - the micro doesn't have much work to do. It might even be possible to connect your sensor directly to the mp3 player with no micro involved - depending on exactly what you want for functionality.

Thanks Dab, ill check out the Rpi website.

Thanks for the soldering advice.

Is there any soldering iron/ equipment you would recommend? I just picked one up in a hardware store and a friend of mine didn't think it was the best. The end is like a flat screw driver and he suggested that I may struggle as the tip is so big :-/ oops.

Yes I like the idea of the blog. To be honest Im still getting to grips with the format of this website and the blogs/posts.

Thanks

Kaylee

OK thanks for that. I'll bare that in mind :-)

Hi Dave,

Yes that's correct, I bought the adafruit shield. Thanks for links- they will be very useful!

Thanks

Kaylee

Hi Doug,

Wow that's cool.

Do you have the project documented in a blog at all?

Thanks

Kaylee