Compass Using Indus Board

This project creates a functional digital compass by combining the compact processing power of the IndusBoard Coin with onboard or connected sensor libraries to read magnetic and acceleration forces. At the heart of the system is the IndusBoard Coin, a tiny 3cm development board connected to a laptop via a USB cable for power and programming. The system interfaces with specialized sensor libraries—specifically Wire.h for I2C communication alongside the LSM303AGR accelerometer and magnetometer header files—to continuously poll environmental heading data. As the device moves or rotates in space, the magnetometer calculates its orientation relative to Earth's magnetic field. The microcontroller processes these directional values in real time using the Arduino IDE environment. Depending on the computed orientation, the IndusBoard selectively drives four external LEDs through current-limiting resistors using five jumper wires. Each of the four LEDs corresponds to a primary cardinal direction (North, South, East, and West), illuminating visually whenever the device faces that specific geographic bearing. This setup transforms raw magnetic sensor data into an immediate, intuitive optical indicator of heading, offering undergraduate engineering students a hands-on exploration of inertial measurement units, I2C bus protocols, and basic microcontroller digital output control.