Chapter 6 A Gentle Touch
Ingredients
- 1 Arduino Uno
- 1 Arduino USB cable
- Your computer
- 1 LED
- 3 jumper wires
- 1 resistor, with the highest resistance you have
- 1 square of aluminum foil, about the size of a cracker
- A piece of tape
When you tap a “button” on a smartphone’s screen you obviously aren’t pushing a button. The phone is detecting your finger on the glass. The same principles working on that screen to sense a finger can be used to make a touch-sensitive “button” with no moving parts!
Concepts: Detecting Touch, Capacitance Sensing, Arduino Libraries
The secret to the phone screen—and to this project—is the property known as capacitance. Capacitance is an object’s ability to hold an electric charge, no matter how small.
Humans exhibit ...
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