Vibe Switcher
It feels like there are stressors everywhere these days. When anxiety and frustration get the better of you, it’s important to have a release valve. The Vibe Switcher is a firm, padded button that sits on your desk. When you slam your fist down on it, it emits a funny sound to immediately switch up the vibe.
Material considerations: thick foam, cornstarch, gel.
Sound considerations: “everything is awesome” from The LEGO Movie
Fire Pit Smoke Screen
My superpower is when I’m standing around a fire pit, I always pick the spot where the smoke billows directly into my face. The Fire Pit Smoke Screen is a wearable fan that constantly blows away from your body, creating a forcefield to redirect smoke from the fire.
Chore Board
A quick and simple way to keep track of groceries that need to be replaced or chores that need to be done. In the style of a train schedule, common goods are listed with a light next to each. When you’re out of something, press the button and it will light up until you turn it off.
Prophecy Machine
A machine that prints out a prophecy on receipt paper when you press a button. Use AI to generate a short, rhyming prophecy. Not sure if this is possible?
Great brainstorm, Ben! Here are some ideas related to each:
1. Vibe Switcher
This is very doable, reminds me of the Staples Easy Button. Here’s a product that would help: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-audio-fx-sound-board
The form you have in mind is super interesting. I remember having a balloon of constarch toy as a kid that was super satisfying to play with. You could wrap your additions to the outside of an arcade button such as https://www.adafruit.com/search?q=massive+arcade+button or roll your own with a mechanism that fits on top of a tactile switch https://www.adafruit.com/product/1119 (you already have some of these too) which is what the pros do, as you can see by browsing past teardowns. What this project concepts is missing is a need for programming, since the switched audio playback can be achieved without it. Maybe the button also connects to wifi and does something online at the same time as the local sound?
2. This idea reminds me of those neckband fans https://www.amazon.com/Neckband-fan/s?k=Neckband+fan but I don’t see the need for programming with this idea. also do you have easy access to a fire pit to demonstrate?
3. This is cute and personal. could be cool to add an email or other internet notification/action when the item changes stock status. such as “email: we are out of milk” or “push notification: paper towels are back in stock”. It’s worth pointing out that without adding more features than in your sketch, this idea doesn’t strictly require a microcontroller either, if you use the right kind of mechanical switch.
I feel as though you need a little more ideation before you will be able to shop for parts, please contact me on slack or email to discuss.
Hi Ben,
Somebody always falls down a thermal printer hole in my class… is it you this year? I joke because they are a notorious pain in the butt to get working. Adafruit and sparkfun even stopped carrying them altogether (https://learn.adafruit.com/mini-thermal-receipt-printer). So I strongly encourage you to deliver your prophecy through some other method due to the short time we have available for this project. Practically speaking, a screen would be the easist. Brainstorming wacky ideas: drawing machine (pen plotter), laser engraver, pre-print the prophecies and just dispense them.
I am reminded of this funny project Vincent Naples did, it’s a mirror that trolls you using AI: https://www.nycresistor.com/2023/06/02/drmbts-shadowselfie-at-the-interactive-show-saturday-june-10th/
Another project that comes to mind is Evan Holbert’s horoscope machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aONF0rqWhRI
as for screens, there are dozens to choose from that will work with Arduino. https://www.adafruit.com/category/63
Here’s an example of a project that has a local LLM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yApuo9uIGY
but I think it’s way overkill for what you need. You can use your wifi board to use AI in the cloud. Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv9cyqVv0CI I haven’t done it personally, but this guy’s documentation looks pretty good.
I guess my question for you is what kind of user experience do you want to generate? Do you want to sense some info from the user that is used to help contribute to what prophecy they get? Maybe not as full-fledged as a keyboard, but maybe a color, a temperature, a photo? They make camera modules that can help with some of the object identification these days https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXiLq1Igxxg
Here’s another similar project idea: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/this-massive-nose-sniffs-things-then-prints-a-description-of-the-smell/