Looking for some help with designing a circuit

[chenharry6]

My friend and I have recently started a project on creating a pair of anti-sleep glasses for long-distance drivers. We have done research with universities in blinking patterns and how they affect drowsiness, but we are relatively new to electronics so we were wondering if someone here might be able to give us a little bit of help with designing our circuit.

I believe it's a relatively simple circuit, for this prototype we only require a photo IR component and a piezo buzzer that corresponds to the outputs from the IR (it buzzes when a certain pattern from the IR is detected). I have quite some bit of experience with programming so we can probably implement the software algorithm on our own but we're really stuck on creating the PCB :/

 

[Harald Kapp]

Use an off the shelf microcontroller (e.g. arduino, teensy, ...) and attach the sensor and buzzer as required. You can also buy off the shelf add-on pcbs (called shileds, hats or someting the like) that eitehr are assembled with the I/O functions you need or you can buy baer add-ons that provide solder pads for you to solder all the required circuit to.

 

[chenharry6]

Hi,
we've already created a prototype utilizing Arduino, but we want to create a more advanced circuit/ pcb that would be put in the casing of our glasses

 

[Harald Kapp]

As youre prototype is already running on an Arduino, you can simply build a customized version on a small pcb, using possibly a smaller chip version and integrate sensor and buzzer (or at least the required circuitry and connections) onto that pcb. Then program the controller with your arduino code and you are good. Still: designing the pcbs so small it fits into the frame of a pair of glasses is a challenge.
There is free software available for designing pcbs (e.g. eagle, kicad, ...), but if you have never designed a pcb the learning curve is quite steep. I recommend you partner up with someone who knows how to design a pcb.

 

[Nanren888]

Depending on what you need that processor to do, something like an attiny will get you arduino programming but a simplified circuit to make the pcb simple.