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Pickleball Scoreboard pt 3- Serial Communication

17 January 2019

I tried to implement Bluetooth, however, neither my computer nor my old android can connect to the Bluetooth HC05 module I have, so instead I tested it using the serial monitor, as the Bluetooth module also uses serial communication. In the video, the HC 05 is connected to the breadboard and powered, but isn’t actually connected to the Arduino. Here it is in action:

Most of the code comes from my previous tests. I essentially combined the 7 segment display and LED code and changed the code to be based on serial communication rather than button presses. I also cleaned it up a little by separating out functions like the LED light up code. Additionally, I got some code from this tutorial on the HC05, which you can see on the serial communication parts of my script.

Originally the code used strings, but I found them tricky to use with serial communication, so I switched them to single character messages instead. This also has the benefit of being more efficient. The most difficult part was the series of if statements that checked what the message was. I eventually got it to work by checking if the message was equal to the ascii code of the character, but honestly I couldn’t tell you why that worked.

I ordered a shitty $16 Bluetooth enabled smartwatch, so hopefully that arrives soon so I can start testing out the actual Bluetooth functionality. Developing for wearable tech is probably going to be the biggest hurdle so far, but I’ll try to get it done. School is also starting up soon, so I’ll ask some of my tech friends if they happen to have/want some android programming experience.

Here’s a link to the github for this test. I decided not to make a schematic since the wiring is almost exactly the same as the previous two projects, just smushed together. Take a look at those if you’d like to recreate it.