Of the two possible routes I could take for my final project, option 1 being complete my first project involving the K20 police haptic hoodie, or creating a public voting system, I chose the latter.

Technological Progress:

I was able to setup a node.js server that uses Johnny-Five, Socket.io, and the Arduino standard Firmata sketch.

Node is used to setup and run a local running server on my computer. Using Johnny-five and javascript I was able to capture button presses and represent them in yes/no bar graphs.

next steps:

build large button pads.

Create a LAN network so people on the same newschool network can access the webpage and submit comparisons for others to vote on.

Criteria for success:
I will consider this project successful if I can deploy it near elevators and waiting students interact with the installation.

 

split between two projects: Continuing my first project or starting a completely different project. So far leaning more towards continuing my first project.

Final Project Proposal

Design Sketches

I designed a tool that regulates the amount of conversations I have per day by rewarding (or possibly punishing) me with money for each conversation that I have. A daily threshold of 60(still working this number out) conversations is set, every 2 conversations yielding $1. Because I am trying to limit the amount of money that I spend per day to under $30, a balance must be achieved. The original design concept includes a wearable 4x2x6 laser cut box, which is meant to be hung around the neck and resting on the chest and is also the primary interface. The box has a lcd screen, which displays a progress bar. There is a potentiometer used to adjust screen contrast. Adjacent to the potentiometer, lies a reset button for the start of a new day. The box was also intended to house a dispenser and features a slot for money to come out of on its side. Additonaly, a 3D printed wristband used to indicate the beginning and end of a conversation, is connected to the box via an arms length wire. The wristband has two components: First, Adafruit’s 8×8 led matrix, which is used to display the current number of conversations I have had. Second, a button, which when clicked once will activate an “ON AIR” sign on the front of the primary box and indicate the start of a new conversation. When clicked a second time, it will deactivate the sign and add 1 to the lcd matrix counter and increase the progress bar. Every 2 conversations will dispense $1.

Construction

Final Product/Use Case

Originally intended to dispense money, I quickly found out that making a working dispenser is an entire other engineering project and feat in itself beyond the scope of the project. However some viable alternatives were suggested:

• Use a bluetooth module to transmit the amount of money earned from conversations to a phone, which would then add the amount to a debit card.
• Rather than dispensing money, the people whom I have the conversations with could decide how I should allocate the earned amount.

A video to come