Java Car Horn

This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. It does not describe an actual complete program. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; I have too many other projects of my own.

I do contract work for a living, which could include writing a program such as this. However, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project any way you please.

This is a hardware interface project to create a high end automobile horn.

The Need

Imagine you are driving your new ultra quiet electric sports car and come upon a cyclist. You want to be sure he knows you are present. You honk your horn. Because his ears are not enclosed inside a vehicle, your horn sounds extremely loud to him. You see him jump in alarm, then recover and give you the finger. You would have preferred something more subtle, perhaps just some noise like a noisy automobile engine.

Imagine the driver ahead of you has a shaved head and tattoos all over the exposed parts of his body, and he goes into reverse and is about to hit you. You don’t want to honk least he get out of his car, rip your car door off in his bare hands and beat you to a pulp. So you play some rap music, that sounds like a boom box. If he does not notice, you play a sound like a Mac truck horn to really get his attention with maximum decibels.

The Net Effect

You can use your automobile car horn to play a variety of sounds, at a variety of volumes, for a variety of durations. These might be your voice, recordings, telephone ring tones, electronic sounds, music, antique car horns, truck horns, ice cream truck music, celebrities (e.g. Dustin Hoffmann saying “I’m driving here!” in his Ratzo Rizzo voice), pick up lines, commands, obscenities, political slogans, insults etc.

How It Works

You need some sort of input device:

Conventional steering wheel-mounted car horn control
On or off. Use duration to also select the sound and volume. The longer you hold down the greater the escalation in attention getting sound.
Pressure sensitive switch
analog. Use pressure to select the sound and volume. You control duration by holding down the switch.
Velocity sensitive switch
analog. Use speed which switch is struck to select the sound and volume. You control duration by holding down the switch.
Position sensitive switch
On or Off. Depending where you hit the switch it engages a different contact. Use position to select the sound. You control duration by holding down the switch.
Some other fancy switch
e.g. a small synthesizer keyboard, a Blackberry size keyboard, a custom 10 key pad. You figure it out.

You need a tiny Java-powered computer with the ability to play sound files and some amplified loud speakers mounted under the hood.

Futures

This is mainly a prototype. Car manufacturers on seeing how this works might invent a simpler, cheaper non-programmable version, perhaps that uses a conventional car horn, but with variable volume. Or they might build the function in using one of the computers already built-in to the automobile.

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The Need

The Net Effect

How It Works

Conventional steering wheel-mounted car horn control

Pressure sensitive switch

Velocity sensitive switch

Position sensitive switch

Some other fancy switch

Futures