Gesture controlled robot Imagine commanding a robot with just a tilt of your hand—no buttons, no remotes, just pure intuitive control. This robot turns your gestures into an extraordinary interactive experience.

Engineer	School	Area of Interest	Grade
Mohamed S	The Urban Assembly for Law and Justice	Computer Engineering	Incoming Senior

Final Milestone

For my third and final milestone, I connected the accelerometer to the Arduino micro allowing for the controller to detect gestures. My biggest challenge was the coding aspect due to my lack of experience; my greatest triumph was honestly finishing the main project a couple of days before demo night despite having a couple of challenges. The key topics I learned were the importance of learning how to communicate with an audience as well as learning more about different types of engineering. I hope that I learn what it takes to create something truly innovative in the future.

Second Milestone

For my second milestone, I got both Bluetooth to connect. I had to ensure a stable connection and follow the correct wiring layouts for the Micro and Uno Bluetooth. What has been surprising is building this car showed me how powerful coding is. Before this program, I always viewed coding as something that’s only associated with software, however, now I know that coding makes machines move. This process was smooth and there weren’t any obstacles I faced. My next step is to get the accelerometer to work which would be the final step for building the gesture-controlled robot

First Milestone

For my first milestone, I’m working on getting the motors working. This project is a robotic car controlled by hand gestures. This project involves integrating DC motors, an H-Bridge for motor direction control, an Arduino Uno R3 for signal processing, and a Bluetooth module for wireless communication with a controller. So far, I’ve successfully set up the Arduino and H-Bridge, and I’ve made progress in programming basic motor functions. However, my main challenge was coding because I had no prior experience. Moving forward, my plan is to focus on getting the Bluetooth module operational to establish communication between the controller and the robot.

The layout of the circuit board

Code

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

#define tx 8
#define rx 9

SoftwareSerial configBt(rx, tx);
long tm, t, d; // variables to record time in seconds

const int Aclockwise = 12;
const int AcounterClock = 13;
const int Bclockwise = 6;
const int BcounterClock = 7;

const int Cclockwise = 4;
const int CcounterClock = 5;
const int Dclockwise = 2;
const int DcounterClock = 3;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(38400);
  configBt.begin(38400);
  pinMode(tx, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(rx, INPUT);

  pinMode(Aclockwise, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(AcounterClock, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Bclockwise, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(BcounterClock, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Cclockwise, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CcounterClock, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Dclockwise, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(DcounterClock, OUTPUT);
}

char c; // declare c as a global variable

void loop()
{
  //checks for Bluetooth data
  if (configBt.available()){
    //if available stores to command character
    c = (char)configBt.read();
    //prints to serial
    Serial.println(c);
  }

  //acts based on character
  switch(c){
    //forward case
    case 'F':
      moveForward();
      break;
     
    //left case
    case 'L':
      turnLeft();
      break;
     
    //right case
    case 'R':
      turnRight();
      break;
     
    //back case
    case 'B':
      moveBackward();
      break;
     
    //default is to stop robot
    case 'S':
      freeze();
      break;
  }
}

void moveForward() {
  // Move forward by setting motors appropriately
  digitalWrite(Aclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(AcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Bclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(BcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Cclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(CcounterClock, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(Dclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(DcounterClock, HIGH);
}

void moveBackward() {
  // Move backward by reversing motor directions
  digitalWrite(Aclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(AcounterClock, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(Bclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(BcounterClock, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(Cclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(CcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Dclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(DcounterClock, LOW);
}

void turnLeft() {
  // Turn left by adjusting motor directions
  digitalWrite(Aclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(AcounterClock, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(Bclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(BcounterClock, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(Cclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(CcounterClock, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(Dclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(DcounterClock, HIGH);
}

void turnRight() {
  // Turn right by adjusting motor directions
  digitalWrite(Aclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(AcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Bclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(BcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Cclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(CcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Dclockwise, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(DcounterClock, LOW);
}

void freeze() {
  // Stationary
  digitalWrite(Aclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(AcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Bclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(BcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Cclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(CcounterClock, LOW);
  digitalWrite(Dclockwise, LOW);
  digitalWrite(DcounterClock, LOW);
}

#include <Wire.h>

#define MPU6050_ADDRESS 0x68

int16_t accelerometerX, accelerometerY, accelerometerZ;

void setup()
{
  Wire.begin();
  Serial1.begin(38400);

  // Initialize MPU6050
  Wire.beginTransmission(MPU6050_ADDRESS);
  Wire.write(0x6B);  // PWR_MGMT_1 register
  Wire.write(0);     // set to zero (wakes up the MPU6050)
  Wire.endTransmission(true);

  delay(100); // Delay to allow MPU6050 to stabilize
}

void loop()
{
  readAccelerometerData();
  determineGesture();
  delay(500);
}

void readAccelerometerData()
{
  Wire.beginTransmission(MPU6050_ADDRESS);
  Wire.write(0x3B);  // starting with register 0x3B (ACCEL_XOUT_H)
  Wire.endTransmission(false);
  Wire.requestFrom(MPU6050_ADDRESS, 6, true);  // request a total of 6 registers

  // read accelerometer data
  accelerometerX = Wire.read() << 8 | Wire.read();
  accelerometerY = Wire.read() << 8 | Wire.read();
  accelerometerZ = Wire.read() << 8 | Wire.read();
}

void determineGesture()
{
  if (accelerometerY >= 6500) {
    Serial1.write('F');
    Serial.println('F');
  }
  else if (accelerometerY <= -4000) {
    Serial1.write('B');
    Serial.println('B');
  }
  else if (accelerometerX <= -3250) {
    Serial1.write('L');
    Serial.println('L');
  }
  else if (accelerometerX >= 3250) {
    Serial1.write('R');
    Serial.println('R');
  }
  else {
    Serial1.write('S');
    Serial.println('S');
  }
}

```

Bill of Materials

Part	Note	Price	Link
Car Chassis	Used for building a car robot	$21	Link
Breadboard	For building electronic circuits	$9	Link
Arduino Uno	Controls the motor driver and collects sensor data	$17	Link
L9110S Motor Driver	For controlling motors	$9	Link
Two HC-05 Bluetooth Modules	For wireless communication	$20	Link
MPU6050 Accelerometer	For measuring acceleration and orientation	$10	Link
Arduino Micro	Interprets gestures for robot control.	$22	Link
Small Screwdriver Set	For assembling the chassis	$7	Link

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