Front panel of the Lux Meter gVI students work with to measure the intensity of light with a photocell
5
Automatic Headlight Controller
This is lab 5 of 10 in the course
Learn about photocells by building an automatic headlight controller. Students measure the change in resistance of a photocell and see how this changes with light exposure, using a pre-built Virtual Instrument to convert change in measured voltage to lux. Students also learn about a voltage divider circuit along with associated equations and use cases. Finally, they implement this logic to create a model of an automatic car headlight system with a LED that illuminates if the light value drops below a threshold. The challenge portion of this project challenges students to create at tripwire motion sensor using concepts they learned.