Proposal Box With Arduino

In this instructable, I'll show you how to make a simple marriage proposal box with Arduino Uno. This will be the perfect way to propose to someone who is passionate about electronics/Arduino projects.

This project is inspired from the Youtube video (Arduino project) below:

Marriage Proposal with Arduino

All the components used in this project are from the Most Complete Project Starter Kit by Elegoo.

Step 1: Assembling the Components

The first thing you need to do is to assemble the components needed to build this project. I used the Elegoo Most Complete Project Starter kit for this and an additional servo motor which can be bought from either Amazon or Banggood.

The components needed for this project are:

1 x Arduino Uno

1 x Ultrasonic Sensor SR04

1 x Passive Buzzer

2 x Servo Motors SG90

1 x MAX7219 LED Dot Matrix Module

1 x 9V Battery

1 x Breadboard

Jumper wires

Female-to-Male Dupont Wires

1 x Box

Double Sided Tape

Scissors

Tape

Ice cream wooden sticks

I made the box with an old iPad box by sticking one side with glue and cutting the edges so that it would open and close easily and decorated it with colored paper. Ideal box for this project would be a wooden box with a lid (with a hole in it for the power cable).

Step 2: Wiring the Circuit

The next step is to wire the circuit. The circuit diagram is as shown in the figure. It looks complicated but it is simple if you wire each component by component. Make sure that the wires of each component do not cross each other. Long wires have to be used so that it is easier to place them in the box in the next step.

The LED Dot Matrix Module DIN, CS, and CLK pins are connected to the 12, 11 and 10 pins of the Arduino respectively.

The SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor Trig and Echo pins are wired to the pins 7 and 6 respectively.

The buzzer is connected to pin 8.

Servo motors 1 and 2 are connected to pins 9 and 5 respectively.

I used a 9V battery here, to power one of the servos, because the Arduino cannot power more than one servo.

In an ideal case, it is always better to solder the components, but I only had one each, which is why I used a breadboard to wire the components. If you get rid of the breadboard, you can use a smaller box for this project!

Step 3: Assembling the Circuit Into the Box

Once I finished wiring the circuit, the next step was to assemble them and lay them into the box.

I placed the ultrasonic sensor in the middle and taped the LED module onto the inside lid of the box. Each of the servo motors are attached to left and right sides inside the box so that they can drive and push out our message board when we open the box. The buzzer can be placed anywhere inside the box.

Once the components have been placed, I taped away all the wires and made sure that they do not block the ultrasonic sensor. The ultrasonic sensor is the driving component in the box. When the box is opened, the ultrasonic sensor detects that the distance in front of it is more than the distance when the box is closed. This triggers the working of all the other components.

Make sure to cut out a hole big enough for the Arduino's USB cable to pass through so that our proposal box can be powered.

Step 4: Uploading the Code

The next step is to upload the code into the Arduino. The code that I used is attached here.

Step 5: Making the Message Board

The last step was to add the message board onto the servo motors. The pop-out message board was made using simple ice cream sticks and double-sided tape. The message on the board written on a paper cut into the exact dimensions of the board was taped onto the board.

Before sticking the message board on the two servos, I made sure that the servos were in their final position (servo blade pointing upwards). This is done by loading the code in the previous step and making sure to get the exact servo position when the box opens and turning off power to the Arduino.

Once this step is complete and the message board has been taped onto the two servos, we are good to go!

All you need to do now is power the box using the Arduino USB cable.

Step 6: Propose to Your Loved One!

This was my first project using the Arduino kit and it was really fun figuring out the code and adding more components to the box as I dug deeper into it.

I recommend trying this and you can add more components and make this box really beautiful and propose to your loved one. Any electronics enthusiast would absolutely love this!

I hope you like my project as a beginner. Please do subscribe to my YouTube Channel.