Ways to add pins in an arduino

Question

I'm making a project for school where I'm using flex sensors and converting that into words on an LCD (similar to the signing glove if you're familiar with that). I ran into a problem since the Arduino I'm using doesn't have enough pins for all of my flex sensors and my LCD monitor.

I'm considering getting another Arduino with more pins but I might not have time to order it since my project is due in a couple of days. I was thinking about connecting two arduinos but I'm not sure if that would work (first year coding/engineering student) Any other suggestions as to how I can create more pins?

Your input is greatly appreciated!

The Arduino I'm using is a sparkfun redboard (it only has 6 analog pins and a separate place to plug in the LCD monitor which I connected to where it says ISP f you look on the link you will see what I'm talking about SparkFun RedBoard - Programmed with Arduino).

I'm using four flex sensors

LCD:

enter image description here

Answer 1

This can be done with the existing board. LCD can be driven by only with the digital pins. Check the below link for the wiring diagram.

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystalDisplay

Since there are 6 Analog pins available, all flex sensors can be easily connected.

Answer 2

This seems like a 1602 display. Note there are also I2C modules that connect to a 1602 making it possible to use it with only I2C wires (and VCC/GND).

See I2C-LCD-interface for a description, although there are many (similar) ones.

For the flex sensors you have 6 analog pins (hope that is enough). If not, than you need an external ADC (analog digital converter). Or connect a second Arduino and use I2C/SPI/Serial to transport the information from one Arduino to Another.