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Title
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CompuBell Doorbell
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Message
Inspiration
We hackers are always wearing headphones whether it's because of Zoom calls, songs while coding, or just watching Netflix. This means it becomes difficult for us to listen to the sounds around us. This led to our hackers not answering the door when someone was there. And thus, CompuBell was born.
What it does
CompuBell is a special doorbell that sends an obtrusive message to your laptop in addition to sound. This will interrupt hackers like us who are laser focused on their projects or are listening to music on high volume. This is the message that you see in addition to the default Windows notification sound. :
How we built it
Compubell consists of the following hardware components:
- ESP32
- Large size push button
- Passive buzzer
Final product:
We have set up a real time database on Firebase that is updated each time the doorbell is pressed. A Python script running on the computer is listening for these updates, and uses Tkinter to display a message on the screen. This message will be shown over any other application running in the foreground.
Challenges we ran into
- Our team is spread out across continents, with two members in India, one in Saudi Arabia, and the other in Canada.
- Most team members were having issues installing Pyrebase, which was a required module.
- Tkinter is a module that is known to be difficult to work with
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Navigating the time zone issues in our team.
- Getting the ESP32 connected to FireBase.
- Figuring out how to display a top level message in Tkinter.
What we learned
- How to use Tkinter to display graphics on a computer using Python.
- Sending updates to FireBase using embedded devices.
What's next for CompuBell
- Expanding the functionality to cover mobile phones as well. So people watching videos on their mobile phones get a message as well.
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