“A 20x4 RGB LCD clock that can display over 500 poems using Arduino and an SD card reader.
For Christmas this year I wanted to make my sister a Christmas present using Arduino. She enjoys poetry and so I decided to connect up a 20 * 4 RGB LCD with an SD card reader. The LCD functions as a clock, displaying the time and the date. Every fifteen minutes it displays the daily poem, which is chosen randomly each day from the SD card. You can also press a red button to display a random poem from the SD card. Whenever a poem is displayed the screen also changes to a random colour. Two other push buttons allow you to change the time and date.
Choosing the poems
To start this project the first stage is to get the poems onto the SD card. It is probably a good idea to first format the SD card to FAT32 format.
I downloaded over 500 poems using the poetryDB API and this python script. I also added a few of my own choice by Robert Frost, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
The full collection of poems I used is available here. Transfer the text files (not in a parent directory) directly onto the SD card. To add additional poems, you just need to write them in a.txt file using a program like notepad.
Building the breadboard
The next step is to put the project together using a breadboard. Follow the circuit diagram shown below (apologies in advance for the number of connections). To understand what the connections are doing, here is a good guide for wiring the SD card reader, and another one for the 20* 4 RGB LCD. Finally, upload the poetryClock.ino code to your Arduino.
Once you have done that, the clock should function like the one in the video above. The red button displays a random poem, the blue button changes a time parameter, the green button selects which time parameter to change (Minute (T), Hour (H), Day (D), Month (M) or Year (Y).
Casing the project
This is the first project enclosure I have tried to make. To do so I used a tuperware from my kitchen and cut a rectangle from the lid using a stanley knife for the LCD screen. I drilled 7mm holes in the lid for the push buttons and drilled a 10mm hole in the body of the tuperware to provide space for a USB connection to the Arduino.
To solder the LCD screen I removed the header pins and directly soldered wires to it. The other end of the wires I pushed into the Arduino ports (with no solder). I used perma-proto boards to house the SD card reader and secured all the boards and peripherals with nuts and bolts. It took a while (and several frustrating revisions) to get the design right, but felt pretty sturdy once it was finished. Photos of my progress are shown below.”