Making Spirits Bright: My Festive Arduino Challenge

This week was Challenge Week for our ETEC-568 class, and I was determined to make the most of it. The goal for this week was to start with an initial circuit and transform it into something unique. With Christmas right around the corner, I couldn’t resist bringing some holiday cheer to this weeks' project.

I started with a simple buzzer circuit from the kit’s guide. It played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"—a great starting point but not quite what I had in mind for this festive challenge. I thought, "Why not make it more Christmas-themed?" After I brainstormed for a while, I decided to see if I could get the buzzer to play "Jingle Bells." Now getting the buzzer to play "Jingle Bells" was a tricky. I had to translate the song’s notes into code, which was completely new to me. I spent a lot of time going back and forth between my Arduino sketch and online tutorials. After some trial and error (and a lot of wrong notes!), I finally got it to sound close enough to the real thing. It wasn’t perfect, but I felt so accomplished when it started to come together.

My circuit looks a little different from these diagrams, however these are the things I incorporated in my circuit.

To make the circuit festive, I paired the buzzer with an RGB LED programmed to cycle through Christmas colors—red, green, and white. These colors added a warm, celebratory glow. First off, I knew the idea I had but truthfully I had forgotten how to code for the RGB LED so I had to look back at my RGB circuit lab from earlier in the class. Adjusting the colors and timing to sync with the melody was a process, but when the LED finally lit up in bright holiday colors, I couldn’t stop smiling! I wanted to take the project to the next level by incorporating movement. Enter the servo motor!

Setting up the servo felt overwhelming because I had never worked with one before, but following step-by-step instructions helped. When the servo started spinning, it felt like magic—until it caused the buzzer to sound distorted. After some Googling, I learned that the servo might be drawing too much power, so I separated the power sources. It wasn’t a perfect fix, but it improved things a lot.The servo was programmed to spin dramatically at the final “HEY” of "Jingle Bells." It didn’t sync perfectly with the sound, but it did work. Despite this, the effect added a playful flair.

I also wanted to add a button to make the circuit more interactive. The plan was for the button to stop the melody, reset the RGB LED, and return the servo to its original position. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the button to work quite right—the melody continues to play until the end. Still, the brainstorming and troubleshooting process was an invaluable learning experience.

Reflection:
The biggest challenge for me was adding a button to stop the melody, reset the LED, and return the servo to its starting position. This seemed simple at first, but I quickly realized how complicated it was for a beginner. I spent hours tweaking my code and testing, but I couldn’t get the button to work as planned. Instead, the melody kept playing to the end no matter what. Even though I didn’t solve this problem, I learned so much during the process. I realized the importance of testing small parts of the code one step at a time.
This challenge week project took about three days of planning, testing, and refining. Even though everything did not turn out perfectly, I’m incredibly proud of the outcome. The combination of the buzzer, RGB LED, and servo motor created a fun and festive circuit that captures the holiday spirit. Watching it come together was incredibly rewarding.