The Shusher

Here is The Shusher. Follow our instructions to make your own!

Enough useful things have already been invented. Is your younger sibling being a nuisance at night? Unable to sleep? Well Look no further, the shusher is available today. It tracks noise level, number of shushes, and beeps at you. Even better, after the third beep a hidden secret is revealed. Each time it shushes, it moves its hand to tell you to be quiet too! Don’t anger him, his eyes might turn red…

Arduino Stuff

1. Arduino Uno R3
2. 2 RGB LEDs
3. LCD1602 Display Module
4. SparkFun Sound Detector
5. SG90 servo Motor
6. Piezo Speaker
7. Potentiometer
8. Wires
9. (2) 1 KΩ resistors
10. (4) 330 Ω Resistors

Tools/Other

1. Soldering kit
2. Superglue
3. Drill
4. Duct tape
5. Straw/Wooden Dowel/Similar
6. 3D Printer (or access to one)
7. Arduino Power Connector

Place the following on the bread board and wire everything to the Arduino UNO as follows. Make sure to ground everything to the board.

Arduino

1. Plug one end of a wire into the 5V connection of the Arduino and the other to the far side of the voltage rail of the breadboard
2. Plug one end of a wire into the GND connection of the Arduino and the other to the far side of the ground rail of the breadboard

Potentiometer

1. In any place on the breadboard you can use, not including the ground or voltage rail, insert the potentiometer.
2. Wire the right side to the voltage rail, and the left side to the ground rail.

LCD 1602 Module

1. Wire pin 1 (GND) to the ground of the breadboard
2. Wire pin 2 (VCC) to the voltage rail of the breadboard
3. Wire pin 3 (V0) to the potentiometer output
4. Wire pin 4 (R5) to pin 13 of the Arduino
5. Wire pin 5 (RW) to the ground of the breadboard
6. Wire pin 6 (E) to pin 12 of the Arduino
7. Wire pin 11 (DB4) to pin 11 of the Arduino
8. Wire pin 12 (DB5) to pin 10 of the Arduino
9. Wire pin 13 (DB6) to pin 9 of the Arduino
10. Wire pin 14 (DB7) to pin 8 of the Arduino
11. Wire pin 15 (LED) to the voltage rail of the breadboard, using a 1 KΩ resistor
12. Wire pin 16 (LED) to the ground of the breadboard

Sound Sensor

1. Wire the sound sensor output pin to analog pin 5 of the Arduino Board
2. Wire the middle leg to the ground rail of the breadboard
3. Wire the last leg to the voltage rail of the breadboard

Piezo Speaker

1. Wire the positive leg of the Piezo speaker to pin 3 of the Arduino board
2. Wire the other leg to the ground rail of the bread board, making sure to use a 1 KΩ resistor.

RGB LEDs

1. Plug a wire into Pin A0. Plug another wire into pin A1
2. Plug a ground wire into the ground rail
3. Wire a 330 ohm resistor onto each end of these two wires.
4. Note: you may need to use more wires depending on how long your wires are. Sufficient length is needed to reach the baby head.
5. Solder the A0 resistor wire to the red leg of the LED. Solder the A1 resistor wire to the third (green leg) of the LED.
6. Solder the ground wire to the ground leg of the LED (the long leg)
7. Repeat steps 1-6 for the second LED, replacing A0 with A2 and A1 with A3.

Servo motor

1. Wire the input connection of the Servo to pin 4 of the Arduino
2. Wire the ground connection to the ground rail of the Arduino
3. Wire the voltage connection to the voltage rail of the Arduino

(Note you will have to solder the 330 ohm resistors to the RGB LEDs, the potentiometer does not need to be wired to the Arduino board as it is wired to the LCD screen.)

Download the below code. Using a USB cable, upload the code to the Arduino.

Note: We had to do quite a bit of value changing in our code using the if soundval block. You may want to raise or lower the value from 35 depending on how sensitive you want it to be.

1. Download the files below for the 5 individual pieces of the Shusher.
2. Utilizing a 3D printer, print the 5 individual pieces.

These quarters will form the chassis of the Shusher.

1. Position the pieces as shown above and glue them together.
2. Apply tape along the outer seams of the circle to hold the assembly securely in place. Allow 24 hours for the glue to fully cure before proceeding.
3. Glue the head to the base, using the circular extrusion located behind the larger rectangle as an alignment guide for proper placement.
4. Once your 3D prints are finished, they should look something like the reference image.

Note: Feel free to paint the baby head. We spray-painted ours gold!

Painting instructions:

1. In a well-ventilated space or outdoors, shake your spray paint can for 1 minute and spray paint from 8-12 inches away in light coats.
2. Aim for 1-3 light coats for best results, with each coat being thicker than the last.
3. Allow 10 minutes in between coats and wait 24 hours for the paint to cure after the third and final coat.

Using a drill of your choice and a drill bit, drill two holes in the back of the head in line with the eyes so that the RGB LEDs can be inserted through the back of the head. In ours, we accidentally drilled the third hole you can see in the third image.

1. As seen in the photo above, the LCD screen slots into the small slit in the front of the shusher. The Sound sensor should sit off to the side, the LEDS should be placed in the baby head after the holes are drilled in the eye socket, the wires should be on the backside of the head and the LED where the eye would be (see below).
2. Super glue the servo motor to the base of the baby skull. When doing this, make sure the servo motor is slightly below the skull with enough room to move whatever object you will be gluing next. In our case this was a straw, which we glued the inside of to the servo motor’s gear bit.

After this, give it power and watch it shush everything in its path! No more annoying siblings or loud noises during the day, just a silly little head telling you to be quiet.