Introduction: Hannuka Menorah Puzzle
This is a little electronics puzzle I made for Hannukah.
You get a black shoe box which says "the Hannukah Menorah is inside". You open the box to find an arduino circuit and a couple of chocolate coins. The goal is to light the Menorah.
The idea is to close the circuit. Closing the circuit gets the Menorah light to light itself accompanied by Hannukah songs and the Brachah. The puzzle is set for the fourth candle. Of course this can be changed to any number of candles.
There are basically three circuits:
- The Menorah
- The Piezo Buzzer
- An open circuit whose closure leads to the triggering of the mechanism.
Step 1: Build the Menorah
The circuit for the Menorah is straight forward. It consists of 8 coloured LEDs and 1 white LED.
1) Place all the LEDs next to each other
2) Connect the Anodes (the long side) of each LED to digital pins 2 - 10 (the Shamash - white LED is connected to pin 6)
2) Connect a 220 ohm resistor in series with the cathode (short side) of each LED and then to the negative stripe on the breadboard).
3) Connect a 1 kohm resistor in series with the white LED, I found that it is otherwise too strong
Link to the circuit: https://circuits.io/circuits/3725257/
This also has a basic code that lights all the LEDs one after the other
Step 2: Add the Piezo Buzzer
Connect the Piezo Buzzer to pin 13.
If it is too loud you can add a resistor in series. I found that if anything it was too quiet.
Sketch with the Piezo Buzzer:
Step 3: Wire the Potentiometer
This is a simple circuit that connects to Analog pin A0.
The idea is that once you close the circuit of the two red wires, A0 measures the voltage and triggers the mechanism.
Note : the two red wires do not terminate on the breadboard (row 60). Rather they are long leads that are put through the side of the shoebox.
Link to the sketch: https://circuits.io/circuits/3730521-menorah-with-piezo-buzzer/
Step 4: .. the Code and Your Good to Go
The code is attached as a pdf file.
Load the code to Arduino IDE and you're good to go.
Enjoy!
