This is a project that I worked on for my Sophomore Project. We were required to learn about raspberry pis, specifically the Raspberry Pi Pico W model, and were then tasked with building something using what we learned over the summer. I opted to build a distance detector that was powered by an ultrasonic sensor. Using ultrasonic waves, it would detect when a person would be in or out of range, and then a buzzer also connected to the raspberry pi would trigger if a person was or wasn’t. The inital usecase that this was implemented for was to detect whether or not a faulty bathroom door was locked, however, ultrasonic waves ended up not being the most accurate at detecting the door, so instead, it would be repurposed and flipped into an alarm system that would trigger if a person got too close.
By completing this project, I gained plenty of experience with working with Raspberry Pis, as well as circuits in general. I also gained more of a further understanding of how circuit work together with Raspberry Pis, and gained more of an understanding of how a large variety of how the circuit modules worked. Aside from the parts used for the project (ultrasonic sensors, buzzers, and LEDS), I also learned how to use an accelerometer, LED displays, buttons, switches, and infrared sensors.