At first I thought the hardest part would be the coding. I was having trouble figuring out how to loop it the way I wanted to through the LEDs. I am not the most experienced at coding but I ended up figuring it out for the ultrasonic distance sensor. I’m still not sure if I want it to be reactive to sound because I really want an output sound of the heartbeat to be played. So, I wouldn’t really consider the coding a fail… yet.

The next thing I tried was using EL wire. My minimal knowledge of EL wire was a major hinderance. It didn’t bend enough to fit into the heart shape that I wanted- I want a realistic shaped heart not a simple heart shape. I also didn’t understand how to do what I wanted to do with the EL wire with the Arduino and I’m confident I either broke it or my circuit was just not compatible- it doesn’t matter anyway because it doesn’t make the shape I want. Instead of wasting my time dealing with more incompatibilities I tried something else.

I obtained glass and tried glass etching cream. It seems like it works well but I need to experiment with different combinations of thickness and amount of cream. I also want to look into if the school has a glass laser engraver and how to use it. I also looked into getting a dremel rotary tool to make designs in the glass. I would have tried using the LED strip to light it up but my friend who said I could use there LED strip was not the type I needed- it was in like a clear tubing and I didn’t want to completely destroy it so I have my own being shipped to me currently.

With cream