Make the button panel

Discussion

The button panel allows the user to interact with the robot. By pressing one of the 4 buttons (tack switches) on the panel the user can select items on the menus displayed on the OLED display. The panel uses a single analog I/O pin on the Arduino board to communicate the button selection. It does this by connecting the 4 buttons in parallel with resistors between each button.

Each button pressed will result in a different resistance on the data pin. However, if multiple buttons are pressed at the same time it will result in anomalous readings (so only press a single button at a time). An alternate design could have been used where each button was connected to a digital I/O pin which would have allowed multiple button recognition, unfortunately there were only 3 digital pin left on the Arduino board.

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