STEPs
A Brief Process Overview
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Research about Arduino and Sensors
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Learn how to put the sensors togethers and Arduino Board together
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Research parts and order them
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Find tutorials and websites to learn how to put the pieces together.
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Learn how to program for the Arduino and sensors
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FInd codes/program online, and edit or add the rest of the necessary codes.
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Start putting the pieces together.
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Run the monitor and test it to make sure it works
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Create a case/cover for the whole mechanism.
My Project Outline (backwards with dates)
December 1st: Completed health monitoring device that has been tested and works. Trifold and presentation about the project itself.
November 23rd: Continue working on second half of the trifold or presentation, and add finishing touches to the health monitor. Test it out a couple of times and fix any small mistakes or issues.
November 16th: Begin making trifold and add main points about the project and purpose. Start testing out the monitor on people (with their consent) and start fixing any issues that are obvious. Conduct trials to keep fixing the device to make it more and more accurate,
November 9th: Get closer to finishing building the device and putting together parts and display screen. Start trying to make it work and run trials.
November 2nd: Continue building the monitor and work slowly to not hit any problems or confusions. Keep trying to run the system to check if everything is working correctly.
October 26th: Continue building the monitor, continuously check instructions to make sure everything is right. Watch multiple videos and read several directions while programming and putting together parts.
October 19th: Work on programming all the different sections of the monitor and follow correct instructions and watch multiple videos. Maybe begin putting together parts.
October 12th: Continue programming the parts and different components of the monitor research how to program each specific part and how it works.
October 5th: Parts should have arrived by now, start programming and researching how to use each part.
September 28th: Continue researching and learning how to program with raspberry pi, practice a few times with the raspberry pi at home. Get used to programming with python.
September 21st :Learn how to program with python, continue learning and researching. Maybe get help from adults who program and watch lots of programming videos. Start programming with raspberry pi.
September 19th: Order the parts and research what is needed for the project. Start learning basics of programming with python. Start watching lots of videos and research a lot about programming.
Detailed Steps
1) First, connect all the wires between the sensors, Arduino Master board and bread board. Follow the exact pattern in the pictures shown. For some of the sensors, you might have to solder the wires/connectors with solder metal to make sure the connection is secure. I had to do this for the pulse rate and temperature sensor because that was the only way the connection work.
Buzzer
OLED screen
In this diagram you can see that an OLED and Buzzer is also included with the pulse rate and spo2 sensor. The OLED and Buzzer are optional but I did not include them. You can check out this website > https://www.hackster.io/SurtrTech/measure-heart-rate-and-spo2-with-max30102-c2b4d8 to learn how to connect those.
Keep in mind that I used the sparkfun pulserate and spo2 sensor and adafruit temperature. There are many other brands that sell these sensors, but for the purpose of my project and my goal I chose to find the cheapest ones to create an overall affordable monitor. You can find more high tech/expensive sensors that are used to measure ECG and other biological health measurements. I found that using these cheap sensors was really challenging actually because it took them a long time to finally work and I faced a lot of problems, one factor could be because I was new to this stuff. The end product however worked fine.
pulse rate and spo2 sensor connections
temperature sensor connections
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3) Now, after you have the Arduino IDE, now you can put in codes. For this you will have to down load the libraries for each sensor that you are connected. You have to make sure that they match with code of your sensor. For example, i had to download the "SparkFun_MAX3010x_Sensor_Library" and the Adafruit MCP9808 library. I downloaded these and I was ready to put in the codes!
Here is part of the code that I used for teh heart rate and spo2 sensor
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#include <Adafruit_GFX.h> //OLED libraries #include <Adafruit_SSD1306.h> #include <Wire.h> #include "MAX30105.h" //MAX3010x library #include "heartRate.h" //Heart rate calculating algorithm MAX30105 particleSensor; const byte RATE_SIZE = 4; //Increase this for more averaging. 4 is good. byte rates[RATE_SIZE]; //Array of heart rates byte rateSpot = 0; long lastBeat = 0; //Time at which the last beat occurred float beatsPerMinute; int beatAvg;
2) Next, since I worked with an Arduino computer, I downloaded the Arduino IDE's or environments, this is important for the Arduino board to be able to read the code and process it properly. At this point you can play around and experiment with other smaller parts like LED's to get to know how the whole thing works. I i this to get a brief understanding of how to write code and how the computer understands it. You can find and download the IDE's from the Arduino website.
4) One of the last things I had to do was of course put the actual code in. I found websites that provided codes for the exact sensors that I was using. It is pretty simple to find them and they are pretty helpful. Then I went over to Arduino IDE -> Sketch -> Include library -> Add .ZIP library -> Select the .ZIP library you've downloaded Then Arduino IDE -> File -> Examples -> "SparkFun MAX3010x Pulse and I just selected the code I found and copied and pasted it into the Arduino IDE. I did the same for the temperature sensor. I went over the codes and tried to understand them. I made any small changes to correct a few parts using what I had learned. To test them out I clicked the right arrow at the top left of the Arduino IDE screen and clicked on it to run the program. After doing this I would see if the sensors did what they were supposed to, and if not, then I made a few more changes and tried to solve the problems and try again.