Student team from University of Novi Sad (Serbia), Faculty of Computer Science, built a mikroBUS board which uses optical fiber cable to detect pressure.
Last week's Science Fair in Novi Sad, Serbia there was an interesting project done by a couple of students and their mentor. You could barely pass through the crowd gathered around their exhibition table. Some people were laughing and some were concentrated on squeezing a rubber ball and measure how strong and fast they are. It all wouldn't be so cool if the entire thing wasn't done on EasyPIC v7 with a custom-made mikroBUS™ board. A magic of the project was later explained to us.
Team built a device using EasyPIC v7 board which mesures pressure and frequency of "squeezes" of sillicon toroid rubber. Pressure sensor is built with plastic optical fiber cable which light intensity changes in direct proportion to applied pressure. Basically, light inside the cable reflects under different angles when different pressures are applied, which then causes the light intensity to vary. Signal from the sensor is then brought to the electronics realized on a custom-made Click board on EasyPIC v7. Processed data is sent to the PC using RS-232 communication.
We are open for cooperation with this young team and you might expect the Click board of their design to be available for sale on our website sometime soon.