Great low-cost, open-source “sip-and-puff” interface to control toys for people with and without limited mobility! Via Bobpardiso.com
Sip-and-puff is one of many ways someone can control a device without having to use their hands, and is a useful method for some people with certain disabilities. A puff is blowing into the tube, and a sip is sucking from the tube. In both cases the required pressure is tuned to the user for ease of use and can be very light to lessen fatigue. There are many sip-and-puff controls on the market for various things, but they can be expensive or difficult to customize. What I’m showing here is an extremely affordable, simple to build, and fully customizable sip-and-puff setup used to control two different remote control toys that have very different controls.
Detecting the sips and puffs is done with a pressure sensor. For this project I chose the MPXV7007G: http://cache.freescale.com/files/sensors/doc/data_sheet/MPXV7007.pdf
This sensor takes -1 to 1 psi as input and maps it to 0.5 to 4.5V as output if you power it at 5V. This nicely sets the full scale as a strong sip to a strong puff and still allows specifically detecting soft sips and puffs. To make it easier to prototype with I soldered on a 4 pin male header and then added hot glue for mechanical support as pictured below.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Python Releases, an ESP32+MicroPython IDE and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
