Computer Controlled House Project

Project Description:
In teams of two, build a model house that is approximately 24” X 24” in size, with a front main entrance, one side or one rear entrance, three windows, and at least two rooms with doors. The model may be built with cardboard or other material you provide yourself and approved by the teacher. The main entrance area and all rooms should have lights that turn on automatically when the entrance door is opened. The lights may be a single LED each mounted above the door or inside the room. The house should be equipped with a security system which sets off an alarm 10 seconds after an exterior door or window is opened by an intruder. A switch should be available inside the main entrance for the house owner/occupant to disable the security system while they are in the house or within 10 seconds of arriving. Door or window opening may be detected by mechanical switches or pairs of IR emitters and detectors. You will wire the model bringing pairs of wires from all LEDs, switches, IR detectors, IR emitters and buzzers out to an external breadboard through which control of the house will be rendered. Power for the system will be supplied from the breadboard.

This project will be done in two parts. For part A, the house will be monitored by a manually operated control panel with LED lights to indicate the open/close status of doors and windows, and push buttons or switches to turn on house lights or activate the alarm. You will operate the house with the control panel, manually turning lights on or off depending on the status indicators and turning on the alarm 10 seconds after an intruder enters the house unless the alarm system is disabled. The indicator LEDs and control switches should be properly labeled to facilitate operation.

For part B, the control panel will be replaced by a computer interface. You will do this part after you have constructed your parallel port interface cable and learned about programming. You will write a computer program in Turing that will automatically control the house, turning on lights when doors are opened and setting off the alarm when someone enters the house and fails to disable the security system within 10 sec. The user interface to the program should display a graphical representation of the