Introduction: 5 Minutes to DIY Your Own Pokemon Go SAFETY BADGE!

By Seeed
About: Howdy, we are application engineers in Seeed. Sharing projects with the maker community is awesome. Hope you like it XD Seeed is the IoT hardware enabler providing services that empower IoT developers to swift…

Soon after Pokeman Go released, the safety issues of playing this game outdoor have drawn a lot of attentions. Players run on the street without watching traffic,even one of them fell down from bridge. It is difficult to be aware of surroundings through a camera lens while playing the game. To avoid potential hazards, I decide to make a Pokemon safety badge to trigger motor when the distance between wearer and any object is less than one meter.

It takes 5 minutes to make this project including assembling parts and uploading the code. Zero hardware background is required. Pikachu~

Step 1: Assemble Hardware Parts

Here are 4 parts we used in this project. The main parts are an ultrasonic or infrared sensor to detect object, and a vibration motor to trigger action. After gathering all the parts, assemble them together. Thanks to the plug and play feature, these parts from Grove system require no soldering for your circuit.

A. Ultrasonic sensor
I used an ultrasonic sensor to detect whether there is any obstacle in front. We can adjust the distant from 3cm to 4m. In this project, we set 1 meter which will be demonstrated in the code.

B. Vibration motor
This tiny motor is the same material of phone vibration.

C. Grove Joint
Grove Joint is an Arduino-based controlled. If you have not heard of Arduino, it is an 8-bit little computer that could interfaces with the physical worlds by sensing the environment and triggering actions.Theoretically any board compatible with Arduino UNO would do the trick, such as Xadow Duino specially for wearable project.

D. 3.7 V battery
This is how you power the badge.

Step 2: Upload Code

A.Download the code
Double click the poke_badge.ide from the demo file to open Arduino IDE interface. If you don’t have Arduino IDE installed in your computer, download it here.

B.Import library
Libraries are often distributed as a ZIP file or folder. Please do not unzip the downloaded library, leave it as is.In the Arduino IDE, navigate to Sketch > Include Library. At the top of the drop down list, select the option to "Add .ZIP Library''.

You will be prompted to select the library you would like to add. Navigate to the Seeed_Grove_Ultrasonic_Ranger_g.zip file's location and open it.

Return to the Sketch > Import Library menu. You should now see the library at the bottom of the drop-down menu. It is ready to be used in your sketch. The zip file will have been expanded in the libraries folder in your Arduino sketches directory.

C.Upload Code!
Click the upload icon (in red square) to upload your code into the controller. When it is done, place your hand on the ultrasonic sensor to test if it works.

Step 3: Laser Cut a Polywood Badge

I shared my file here if you want to make the same one like mine. Making sure you leave 2 holes for ultrasonic sensor to detect object in front.

Step 4: Assemble Electronic Part and Badge

Find a way to put the electronic parts inside the badge and a clip that you can attach it on your cloths. Now you are all set again to play Pokemon but with safety notification. Good luck catching 'em all.

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