Mood Indicator

Last Friday I went to a warehouse movie screening/concert in Brooklyn, the security guy, in order to mark my admission, drew an unhappy face on the back of my hand(because sadness is much cooler than happiness apparently). It basically looks like the face on the right in the picture below:

 

This inspired me to apply what I just learnt about circuits, LEDs and switches and make a prototype for a simple mood indicator. Two LEDs are wired in parallel in the circuit, and each controlled by a switch.

 

The calm/chill face (or the sleepy face if you misunderstand my beautiful drawing) is connected to a blue push button. When pressed, the button turns on the blue light to indicate “I’m fine, I’m just meditating” or something similar.

 

The sad/anxious face has a force sensing resistor connected inside. If you squeeze the face, depending on how hard you squeeze (or how high you anxiety level is), the red LED changes its brightness accordingly. To add to the user’s experience, I wrapped cotton balls around the force sensing resistor, making it easier to squeeze. This way it also works as a stress relief ball.

One thing I notice in the circuit is when I press the push button and squeeze the force sensor at the same time, only the blue light (connected to push button) lights up. This may be the resistance on the force sensor/red LED side is stronger than that of the blue LED, thus most current chooses to pass through the blue light and not the red light.

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