Mobile Fish Tank

Have you ever felt that your fish gets bored of the same old view? Why not give him some legs, or wheels, and let him roam around a bit?

Austin and Derek spent the summer with DigiKey as Applications Engineering Interns. Coming from the Electrical Engineering Programs at NDSU (North Dakota State University) and SDSM&T (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology), respectively. Although there was much debate over which school was better, there was no debating how cool their project was. They were tasked with creating a fish tank with wheels. The kicker: the fish has to drive the tank around.

The project revolved around two microcontrollers. The first is from NXP’s Kinetis V-series lineup, the KV31F, which is supported by the FRDM-KV31F evaluation board. This micro is geared heavily toward motor control and features Kinetis Motor Suite. Find more on that here:

• Getting Started with the Freescale KV31F
• Getting Started with Kinetis Motor Suite

The other microcontroller was the Renesas DK-S124, supported by the YSDKS124S20 evaluation board. The DK-S124 has lot of GPIO that are accessible, making it ideal for sensing applications, as well as the ThreadX Real Time Operation System that makes multitasking a breeze.

• Getting Started with the Renesas DK-S124
• Configuring and Using the UART Interface on the DK-S124
• Using the ADC and ThreadX RTOS Messaging Framework on the Renesas DK-S124
• Using the GPIO’s and Timer Module’s on the Renesas DK-S124 with the HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor
• Using the Renesas ThreadX RTOS and Messaging Framework to Take Data from Multiple Sensors Using Multiple Threads
• Using the Seeed Grove 6 Axis Accelerometer/Gyroscope over I2C and Pin Interrupts with the Renesas DK-S124

The project was not limited to just microcontrollers. Austin and Derek had the opportunity to explore DigiKey’s vast catalog of parts. The fish tank features products from connectors and cabling to sensors and switches.