Accelerometer
Accelerometers are advanced components that can measure acceleration. Initially, they were designed for airplanes and rockets, but now we can find them in any phone, laptop, hard drive, and a whole bunch of toys.
By measuring acceleration, we can determine if an object is moving, how rapidly it is changing direction, and benefit from its most popular use—determining the orientation of the object. Accelerometers come in various types and the number of axes they can sense is the basis of their categorization. Now, almost all accelerometers can sense three axes—meaning they can sense acceleration in any direction it happens.
In this example, we will read the data from the accelerometer and print it over a serial connection.
Getting ready
To execute this recipe, you will need the following ingredients:
An Arduino board connected to a computer via USB
An analog accelerometer board; in this case, we used Sparkfun ADXL335
A breadboard and jumper wires
How to do it…
Analog accelerometers are...
