Oregon’s Shore Acres Park Outdoor Holiday Lighting Exhibit

Weatherproof BASIC Stamp microcontroller Enclosure

Lighting Display installed at Shore Acres

The class decided to design a display with three main elements. The first element, consisting of 28 individually controlled seagulls, would reside under the roof of the main entrance gazebo. By sequentially turning individual birds on or off the birds could be made to appear as if they were flying across the ceiling in up to six different paths. The second element, of 20 red crabs, was placed in the landscaped area immediately to the left of the main entrance. By sequencing these crabs, it was made to appear that there were four crabs scuttling around in the area. The third and final element was a sequenced line of eight blue and white waves which flowed back and forth around the scurrying crabs. All in all, the class used nearly 1000 feet of variously colored rope lights in the construction of the display. The 40 individual light groups were connected to the six BASIC Stamp controllers by over 2000 feet of parallel jacketed 18 gauge wire. The sensors were connected to the BASIC Stamps using Cat 5 networking cable with RJ-45 connectors.


Crabs and Waves


Crab Wiring

The display was designed to respond to the presence of viewers. Different elements responded in different ways. Seagulls here on the coast tend to look at tourists as convenient sources of food, and so they will often swoop over as a group to check people out. Our seagulls were designed to fly toward people as they entered through the various sides of the gazebo. The students accomplished this by using cheap motion detectors from Wal-Mart (about 9 bucks each). This type of motion detector senses the infrared radiation given off by a warm body and is sensitive to over 30 feet. The sensor uses two matched elements. When the source of radiation changes bearing with respect to the detector, the readings on the matched sensor elements change with respect to each other and the circuit fires.

The sensors we used were originally designed to switch 300 watts of 120 v AC lights on when they fired. Our goal, however, was to use the sensor to bring an input pin on a BASIC Stamp high with only five volts DC. When we took a sensor apart, we discovered that the lights were switched on and off by means of a relay which fired when 24 volts DC was sent through the relay coil. We did not want any failure-prone moving parts in our display so we removed the relay altogether. We simply tapped into the 24 volt coil source on the circuit board and ran that output over to the Stamp control box.


Seagull Wiring

In the BASIC Stamp control box we needed to drop the 24 volt sensor signal down to a TTL level of five volts. We did this by using a LM7805 regulator chip to condition the voltage down to 5 volts. This had the added advantage of allowing the sensor signal line voltage to vary due to voltage drop between the box and the sensor without affecting the accuracy of the signal.

We were still concerned about possible spikes coming down the line, however, so we used some 2504 optoisolator chips on the output of the voltage regulators to eliminate any direct wire connections at all between the sensors and the BASIC Stamps.

The programming was written so that when one or more of the five bird control sensors fired, the output pins controlling individual birds would go high in the desired sequence.

The output pins were connected to RC-4 I/O Boards which were populated with Crydom D2W202 solid state relays. Each relay allowed a single BASIC Stamp pin to directly switch a 200 watt 120 volt load on and off with no moving parts. These proved ideal for our needs as we did not want any moving parts at all in our display. Some of the other displays in the park were controlled by mechanical relays, and during the month-long course of the display many mechanical relays wore out and had to be replaced.


BASIC Stamp microcontrollers Connected to RC-4 I/O Boards

Although the RC-4 boards were able to use serial communications to talk to the BASIC Stamps, we opted to simply send the 5 volts from the output pin of the BASIC Stamp directly to the input pin of the solid state relay. We discovered that the little 3 wire sets used to connect indicator LEDs to computer motherboards were a perfect fit with the pins on the relay boards.

The crabs worked in a similar manner. As a viewer approached the crabs, a sensor would fire and the crab would run away. As the viewer passed by, a second sensor would be triggered and the crabs would run back.

The project worked as planned (after the expected troubleshooting). The project was both more involved and more fun than we had originally anticipated. Since all of our logic and control equipment was from Parallax, it all integrated smoothly and was both easy and fun to work with. Thanks to Parallax for a great product!

About Shores Acres State Park

Shore Acres State Park was once the grand estate of a pioneer lumberman and shipping baron, Louis Simpson. Now the park features spectacular ocean views and seven acres of eye-pleasing gardens. A formal garden featuring restored plants and flowers acquired from around the world, an oriental-style pond and two rose gardens compose an impressive floral display.


Gardens at Shore Acres State Park

Thousands of decorative holiday lights give the gardens a festive seasonal glow Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. Trails lead to a secluded ocean cove at Simpson Beach and to viewpoints along rugged Bay sandstone cliffs that make the park one of the best wave and whale watching locations on the Oregon coast. A fully enclosed observation building, popular for storm watching, stands on the site once occupied by the estate’s mansion Taken from http://www.oregonstateparks.org/images/pdf/sunset_full.pdf.


Pacific Ocean at the edge of Shore Acres State Park