Control a Servo with Your Phone Using Bluetooth!
You can control a servo using a cell phone app through Bluetooth.
Bluetooth is everywhere—from smartphones to computers to cars. Even though students are exposed to this technology, many are not aware of how they can use it themselves to wirelessly control their own creative projects! For this challenge, students work through the engineering design process, as they build on what they learned during a previous Arduino maker challenge, Make and Control a Servo Arm with Your Computer, and learn how to control a servo with an Android phone (iPhones do not work with the components used in this challenge). By the end of the exercise, expect students to be wirelessly controlling a servo with a simple phone application!
- computer, Windows or Mac
- Arduino software; download from https://www.arduino.cc/en/software
- SparkFun RedBoard or Arduino Uno microcontroller and programming cable; an Arduino Inventor’s Kit is recommended (some of its many components are the items listed below), such as at SparkFun
- breadboards
- 180-degree servos; one comes with the Arduino Inventor’s Kit recommended above—the generic sub-micro size servo from SparkFun, or obtain higher-quality servos such as the Hitec HS-422 standard size from SparkFun
- jumper wires
- 9V battery, such as at SparkFun
- 9V connector wire
- Bluetooth Mate Silver, available here
- Android phone; note: iPhones will not work with the Bluetooth Mate for this exercise
- Bluetooth SPP app, or Bluetooth SPP Pro app, by Jerry Li at the Google Play store; the specific app depends on the phone used
Contributors
Daniel Godrick
Supporting Program
ITL Program, College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Acknowledgements
This activity was developed by the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Special thanks to Jacob Segil and SparkFun Education.
Copyright
2017 by Regents of the University of Colorado