Motion Feedback MP3 Player

Concept: Create a feedback loop between a motion sensor and MP3 player volume

I wanted to create a positive feedback system to encourage more activity during a workout. What I came up with is an MP3 player that is controlled by continuous activity. After working with it and discussing the project with friends, I believe this concept could be implemented many different ways and maybe even directly embedded in a media player. Someone even brought up that they change the volume on their iPod to hear the songs as they workout or run harder just to hear the song better.  Yeah Power Song!

My proof of concept uses a SparkFun MP3 Trigger, Parallax PIR Motion Sensor, and an ioBridge IO-204 Controller. When motion is detected by the PIR sensor, the IO-204 sends serial commands to the MP3 player to raise or lower the volume. An added benefit to using the IO-204 as the controller  is that  I have the ability to data log my activity when it's net-connected.

Step 1 Gather Up Components

Time to gather up your system components:

SparkFun MP3 Trigger
Parallax PIR Sensor
ioBridge IO-204 Controller
Project Enclosure
Speakers
Micro SD Card with Favorite Songs
Hookup Wire

Comments

[olegka]

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[iobridge]

Great project! Good luck wit the contest. Last month we blogged about your project. www.iobridge.net/projects/2010/04/feedback-mp3-player-and-activity-logger/

[inchman]

 This is cool, but how does it fit in with the Humana contest?  Am I missing something?

[polymythic]

The rules indicate that the contest asks people to "Enter an instructable that promotes health..."  This makes being active just a little easier by allowing you to feel the positive effects immediately of your activity.  If you are rewarded for an activity, you are more likely to do it.  :-)

[odin84gk]

From what I understand, PIR sensors detect a change in heat. How does it detect motion if you are standing in one spot? Does this only work if you are within a few feet?

[polymythic]

From the Parallax site it looks for changes in infrared patterns in its 20 foot field.  So if you are standing still, the image is not changing much, hence no movement.  I don't know the details of the sensor, but perhaps it just sums up the total IR content in its "snapshot" and if there is a lot of change, it registers movement.  I doubt it takes IR values for a field and compares changes at each X and Y position.