Art Controller for Museum Display

[hudsontucker13]

Hello,  I am working on a display for a children’s museum that will teach the kids about water conservation.  My plan is to have a podium that would ask the kids a question and they push a button by the answer they choose.  Depending on the answer they choose a small water pump would pump water out of a clear PVC pipe,  the water efficient answer would pump a small amount of water out and the wrong answer would pump out a large amount.  The goal would be to still have water in the pipe when they are finished.  My plan would be to have five arcade buttons wired to the art controller set at say 2 seconds and five buttons wired to a different art controller set for about 5 seconds, both boards would be wired into a small water pump that would transfer the water from the clear PVC pipe to a storage container.  There would be another button to push when they are finished with the game to reset it.  This button would be hooked to a different Art Controller and pump that would be set long enough to pump the water out of the storage container back into the PVC pipe.

I don’t think this would require any type of programming, but please correct me if I’m wrong.  Does this sound like a reasonable setup?  Also,  If I used a 12V power source to power the Art Controller, do I need to use a 12V DC pump?

Please let me know if any of this does not seem clear, and thank you for your help.

 

[Windell Oskay]

Yes, it sounds like this is a reasonable setup, and should work work pretty much as you describe it, all without any programming. 

You do not necessarily have to use 12 V DC pumps, but I would recommend it.  12 V DC water pumps are plentiful, quiet, and inexpensive– many are used for applications like desktop PC CPU coolers.

Also, I wonder if there might be good alternatives to requiring a button press to reset the demo.  For example, you could have a small hole in the pipe that drains out the water over the course of a minute or so, even if they don’t press the button to reset the exhibit.  The kids would still see the water standing there, unless they were quite patient to wait for it to drain all the way.  With programming, you could also change the “reset pump” controller to be triggered by the two main buttons, but not to run the pump until after a delay of (say) 30 seconds.

[hudsontucker13]

Thank you so much for your help and I will consider some of the other methods to reset the game.  I will keep you posted on the progress.

[Author]

Posts