Bluetooth "Sonic" Screwdriver, Mark I

People have been responding to the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who in various ways. Apparently mine is to build Sonic Screwdrivers. The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) once mentioned in passing that his screwdriver had eight computers in it - an impossible throwaway line in 1978.

This one has three.

First assembled tests. Audio is a very quiet.

What's inside: Arduino 16Mhz computer, MP6050 accelerometer/gyro,
LiPo battery and boost power converter, speaker, LEDs, and Bluetooth module.

This wasn't entirely the original intention, but things just kind of escalated. (As they do.) The original prototype looked like this:

Arduino Leonardo, LCD screen, and MP6050 accelerometer/gyro.

But once the MP6050 was proven to work to my satisfaction, I wanted to build it into some kind of hand-held device that I could properly wave around without smashing. 

There is a slightly serious background to this - I am a computer scientist with an interest in novel human-interface devices, and I'm planning to build some robots (automated telescopes and quadcopters) over Christmas that use the same sensor tech in their inertial navigation.

Think of this as the brain of a flying droid, but without the motors. A safe starting point.

Oh, and it has a bluetooth module in it as well, so theoretically one can connect a serial terminal to the screwdriver from a mobile phone, but that's proving a little trickier than I'd hoped. If you like, you can accuse me of essentially re-inventing the wii-mote. And an IR LED, so it could function as a universal remote if I programmed it to.

I find it makes sense to build a prototype, write some "hardware test" code that exercises it in some kind of demo mode, and then rebuild the hardware (with the software already installed) in stages so you can incrementally test that everything is working.

'Blank' case modelled roughly on Pertwee-era sonic.

This is all the internals assembled. Once I knew the rough size, I started making a 'case' out of PVC pipe, which is a cheap and easy material to work with. And I happen to have various sizes lying around the workshop.

Finding an appropriate "button" was one of the hardest parts. Eventually I pulled the switches from an old mouse and installed two.

Buttons added, channels to let the glowing out,
and a thingie for the end. Charging up.

The LiPo battery is charged directly by the Arduino, so some calibration was needed to make sure it was treading the fine line between adequately charging, while not allowing flames to shoot out sideways.

Mostly assembled, just before the video. Lights being tested by USB commands.

I've since cut a hole for the battery power switch, and plugged up the open end with Silicone (which still lets the Arduino glow out) and once the new owner paints it, I'll post some final photos.

Only one thing hasn't quite turned out - the internal boost converter is actually providing better regulated 5V power than my computer does over USB. (Unexpected!) That means that when plugged in, it still preferentially draws power from the internal battery, which is not what one wants. Hence a hardware switch to isolate the battery. I will revisit this.

Of course, the hardware is in many ways the easy part. The point was to create a new platform for testing out ideas. The software has already taken far longer. The total hardware cost has been under $50 - it's essentially 'disposable'. But if you added up all my time, and costed me at my usual contracting rate, this is a multi-thousand dollar device. A bespoke artifact.

In the end, that's why The Doctor's sonic is so damn cool - Four hundred mythical years of software development, moved from device to device. That's a deep and insightful truth about Computing Science. Hardware is transitory, but code can be eternal.