Robot in a Terrarium

Hi, today I will be facing my fears of having water near electronics (and AI in general taking over) by putting an AI simulation Robot in a terrarium that I need to constantly mist.

I've never built a project that will get wet or be in a humid environment before because I was scared that I would damage the electronics, start a fire, or shock myself, but it is time to get over that and face my fears head on.

The general idea of this robot is that it is trying to figure out human morales, so it spends its day thinking, unless you spray it with water or get too close, then it will get angry.

1 8x8 display

1 LCD display

1 ultrasonic sensor

1 Arduino nano

1 Water level sensor

Jumper wires

Sphagnum moss

Terrarium container

substrate (little rocks)

1 small wooden dowel

First, you are going to want to set up your terrarium.

Make a base out of the small pebbles, then put down the moss (I recommend sphagnum moss because it is slow growing and hardy).

After you place all the decorations you wish to put in your terrarium (I used fake moss balls), place the wooden dowel in the center, make sure it is straight, and then use some adhesive to keep it in place.

Now that your terrarium is prepped, we can now start to work on the robot.

Place your Arduino Nano on the side of your breadboard, make sure when you do this there is enough room for the other components.

1. Connect a red wire from the 5V pin of your Arduino to the power terminal of the bread board
2. Connect a black wire from the GND pin of your Arduino to the GND terminal of the bread board

Grab your 8x8 Arduino led matrix, some connecting wires, and follow these instructions (Make sure your wires are long enough to reach out of the terrarium).

1. Connect power to the power terminal of the breadboard
2. Connect the GND to the GND terminal of the breadboard
3. Connect DIN to pin 12 of the Arduino
4. Connect CS to pin 10 of the Arduino
5. Connect CLK to pin 11 of the Arduino

Next Grab your Water level sensor

1. Connect the power to the power terminal of the breadboard
2. Connect the GND to the GND terminal of the breadboard
3. Connect the last pin to A1

Once you have these two components connected, I would recommend glueing them together to make it easier to put in the terrarium.

After that I would recommend waterproofing them. I was originally going to cut a clear acrylic box over it, but the place I get it from ran out so I strategically wrapped it in plastic. However, I heard coating it in clear nail polish works well, so you could give that a try.

Once that is done, put your components inside the terrarium and stick it to the wooden dowel with an adhesive

Next you will want to connect your lcd board to the breadboard

Connect VSS to GND

Connect VDD to 5V

Connect a 100 Ohm resistor to GND

Connect RS to pin 2

Connect RW to GND

Connect E to pin 3

Connect D4 to pin 4

Connect D5 to pin 5

Connect D6 to pin 6

Connect D7 to pin 7

Connect A to 5V

Connect K to GND

Finally, you will connect the finale component, the ultrasonic sensor.

Connect VCC to 5V

Connect GND to GND

Connect trig to 9

Connect echo to 8

Next upload the code, it still needs some work but the bulk of it runs smoothly and I will be updating.

You can seal the project on an actual board or leave it on the breadboard to work on later like me.

Enjoy taking care of your robot.