what_the_click

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  What the Click?!

Inspiration

Our inspiration was when we were trying to figure out what to do for our project, and we saw a pen. And we wondered, what if it was an IoT pen?

What it does

Through text messaging using Twilio and some Twitter functionality, we can make the pen click itself using a Dragonboard and an Arduino.

How we built it

We used a Dragonboard to run a server that we used to parse SMS commands that either communicates with an Arduino that controls the servo that clicks the pen or interfaces with other apps.

Challenges we ran into

The Dragonboard doesn't have a PWM pin, which meant we had to also use an Arduino to be able to connect to the servo. We tried to incorporate Fitbit GPS functionality but quickly realized that it was very difficult to get the information from the Fitbit without using the Fitbit companion app, which we didn't want to use. We also tried to incorporate Alexa functionality but it was very difficult trying to register our Dragonboard as an Amazon IoT device. We had issues using OAuth to connect to other users with one Twitter Developer account. The Python dependencies weren't installed on the Dragonboard, which caused us some problems. It was also difficult to make the pen structurally strong enough to be able to handle multiple clicks without moving out of place.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We made a pen that successfully clicks itself. We were able to incorporate Twilio as well so that we could click the pen using texting features, which also allowed us to use Google Assistant to control the pen using Google Routines. We were also able to tweet using the pen without accessing the Twitter app.

What we learned

We learned about various API's, such as Twilio, Twitter, Fitbit, and Amazon Alexa. We also learned how to use a Dragonboard to run our server.

What's next for what_the_click

We'd like to make a more elegant, compact design for the pen. We would also like to add accelerometer support. We would also like to be able to make it work without a dedicated power supply. We would also like to add support for other messaging services other than SMS messaging. We would also like to add the ability to log into multiple Twitter accounts using the pen as well.

Built With

• python