ANNIE KLOPP | Mini Project 2

Intro

The pulse sensor has three wires attached to it:

the red wire = +3V to +5V

the black wire = GND

the purple wire = signal (analog pin 0)

Step 1

Getting the Arduino and the Pulse Sensor to Work

I was finally able to get the pulse sensor to work with this Arduino sketch and this setup:

This is the Arduino sketch I found on http://www.arduino-hacks.com/arduino-pulse-sensor-getting-started/ working, and the second LED pulsing with my heartbeat.  

I was having major problems getting the Processing Visualization of the Data sketch to work. I tried inserting different serial ports, but this just made the processing sketch freeze and I was always left having to force quit the program.  

For this reason, I am going to try to use just the Arduino coding program and not processing if at all possible. 

Step 2
Combining the first Sketch with and LCD Sketch

Now I am going to have to split the 5V between two different sources:  the pulse sensor and the LCD screen.  If I choose to use a battery the set up will look similar to this:

Working the LED "Hello World" Sketch

 I'm getting error messages that say to visit http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Troubleshooting#upload for troubleshooting advice. 

I'm finding that I think the port is not connecting to my Arduino Programming software.  

 I tried connecting it to each of the ones listed here and only got error messages. 

I tried re-downloading the suggested "driver" for Mac.

I then installed the Serial Driver package.

I restarted Arduino. 

But I still don't see another serial port coming up on the list; it looks exactly the same.

I'm starting to think that my Arduino might have broke in the process of all of this, since it is not showing up on the ports list, even after re-downloading the driver and restarting the program, and now it is not even lighting up when plugged in.

 

none of the Arduino's lights are lighting up.

At this point, I am at a loss, I'm not sure what I should have ready for tomorrow. I did not find any spare Arduinos in the electronics closet, so I borrowed an Arduino from a friend to see what was going on.  The new (friend's) Arduino is lighting up fine, but the port is still not showing up.

-----UPDATE-----

I'm still not able to get the LCD screen to work even on another computer.  

I guess I'm going to just use the pulse sensor sketch for my project, since I've run out of time and don't know where to trouble shoot from here.

This is my mini project displaying a blinking heart rate in the in-class critique: