This is my very first arduino application. But its simple and amazing.
You will need 4 female to female jumper wires and [amazon &title=HC-SR04&text=HC-SR04] ultrasonic sensor, a microusb cable and in the end you’ll be able to measure distances with this little device.
Just wire it like shown below:
I used pins 7 (orange echo) and 8 (yellow trigger) for data pins, 5V(red) and ground(black).
I have taken some code from this page. The result you can see in the screenshot below, its a amount of cm written in the serial console:
/* [amazon &title=HC-SR04&text=HC-SR04] Ping distance sensor: VCC to arduino 5v GND to arduino GND Echo to Arduino pin 7 Trig to Arduino pin 8 This sketch originates from Virtualmix: http://goo.gl/kJ8Gl Has been modified by Winkle ink here: http://winkleink.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/arduino-hc-sr04-ultrasonic-distance.html And modified further by ScottC here: http://arduinobasics.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/arduinobasics-hc-sr04-ultrasonic-sensor.html on 10 Nov 2012. */ #define echoPin 7 // Echo Pin #define trigPin 8 // Trigger Pin #define LEDPin 13 // Onboard LED int maximumRange = 200; // Maximum range needed int minimumRange = 0; // Minimum range needed long duration, distance; // Duration used to calculate distance void setup() { Serial.begin (9600); pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT); pinMode(echoPin, INPUT); pinMode(LEDPin, OUTPUT); // Use LED indicator (if required) } void loop() { /* The following trigPin/echoPin cycle is used to determine the distance of the nearest object by bouncing soundwaves off of it. */ digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); delayMicroseconds(2); digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH); delayMicroseconds(10); digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH); //Calculate the distance (in cm) based on the speed of sound. distance = duration/58.2; if (distance >= maximumRange || distance <= minimumRange){ /* Send a negative number to computer and Turn LED ON to indicate "out of range" */ Serial.println("-1"); digitalWrite(LEDPin, HIGH); } else { /* Send the distance to the computer using Serial protocol, and turn LED OFF to indicate successful reading. */ Serial.println(distance); digitalWrite(LEDPin, LOW); } //Delay 50ms before next reading. delay(50); }