Smart Garage

An Arduino model car park, built as a team at a robotics workshop: a servo-driven gate, IR sensors that count cars in and out, a 7-segment display of free bays, automatic lighting and a heat alarm.

When: 2021, a team build at a robotics workshop
Hardware: Arduino, servo, two IR sensors, 7-segment display, LDR, thermistor
Code: Hand-written embedded C++, from before AI coding assistants existed

How it works

Counting. Two IR sensors at the gate tell an entering car from a leaving one. The number of free bays updates on a 7-segment display, driven by direct AVR port manipulation.
The gate. A servo opens the door for a car and closes it again.
Light and heat. An LDR turns the lighting on when it gets dark. A thermistor, converted to a temperature with the Steinhart–Hart equation, raises an alarm if the garage gets too hot.

The 7-segment display shows the free-bay count as a model car crosses the IR gate — From the 2021 demo video: the display counts free bays as a car crosses the gate.

The model car park: painted parking bays, gate posts and wiring — The model: parking bays, the gate posts and the wiring.

The full demo video is available on request. Email me.