Beginning:
Paper passes through a copy machine, with 3 photo sensors monitor its path. Each sensor is equipped with an incandescent lamp and when a paper breaks the light beam between a photo transistor and the lamp, the sensor will put out a 1. If the light beam is not disrupted it will output a 0. If two sensors adjacent to each other output a 1 then the machine will notify it as a paper jam and the LED light will go off as well as the buzzer. The LED will turn off when it is fixed but the buzzer will continue until the reset switch is flipped. Constraints consisted of time, materials, we had to work in partners, and we didnt have to actually build it.
Circuits:
What you needed to build it was wires, logic gates, flip flops, resistors, and switches.
- The point of the resistors is to control the amount of voltage that flows into the light bulbs. If too much power to flow the lights would burn out.
- These were used to detect if the light beam's path was broken. So that if two adjacent lights were interrupted the circuit would detect a jam and the light and buzzer would go off.
- The flip flop was placed so when the jam was cleared the light would turn off but the buzzer would remain on until the reset switch was activated.
- LED will turn off notifying the jam is cleared, but the buzzer stays on so that the user can check the machine to see if any improvements can be made to prevent this problem in the future.
Conclusion:
The other projects used switches as inputs and led/seven segment as outputs but this project used motors and sensors. Also this project required us to build the project in real life rather than just upload it to a circuit board. What I learned was how to back track and fix any problems that occurred, how to assemble a copy machine that lights up, and how to work well with a partner by splitting up the work 50/50.