Arduino Wave Shield

Question

Hi All,

I have an idea for a project and it would be great to get some advice and tips.

The idea started out as a project for my newly purchased Raspberry Pi zero but the more the idea developed the more I found myself going back to my very basic knowledge of the arduino.

I want to make a movement activated, pre recorded voice.

I have purchased the ardunio wave shield for the sound bit and I have a very basic motion sensor and a speaker.

I also bought a mic but discussing with a friend they suggested to pre-record my message using my laptop microphone and then transfer it over to the shield.

What do people think?

Have I gone down the right path for the project I want to build?

Is this project a bit too complex for a novice?

If you have any links to youtube videos etc please comment below!

The first mission of mine is to learn how to solder as the wave shield isn't pre made.

Thanks

Kaylee :-)

dougw · Answer

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.

genebren · Answer

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

DAB · Answer

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

beacon_dave · Answer

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

BigG · Answer

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.

beacon_dave · Answer

The Adafruit library supports FAT16 and FAT32 formats according to this: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-wave-shield-audio-shield-for-arduino/sd-card

dougw · Answer

That blog is all there is right now. If there is something you would like to see, mention it in the comments under the blog and I will try to address it.

Arduino Wave Shield

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