A few months ago I found a problem, how do I know what clothing is appropriate for the weather while I am getting dressed. Being the budding maker that I am I spent the next few weeks researching, designing, and building a device to display the daily forecast and help me figure out what to wear. This was my first original Arduino(a small computer that can interact with the world) project so it took a while, but I learned so much along the way. This was my first time connecting my Arduino to the internet which is how the gadget receives weather data. I learned how to wire and control a seven segment display, character display, and line tracking module.
A full tutorial and write up can be found on my Hackster project page here
This gadget connects to the internet and received weather data for my area. It displays the forcasted High and Low temperatures on the viewers left and right respectively on the white 7-segment display (in the picture the High is 73 and the low is 37) . The green character display shows the current date, day of week, and a quick summary of the expected weather.
This project also served as my first use of APIs(Application Programming Interfaces) which allowed me to get weather data through the internet without fully understanding how the process works. I used the Weather Underground API for the weather data.
Finally, This was also the first time I designed an enclosure in Fusion 360 (a 3 dimensional
design software). This enclosure used a mounting plate to hold all of the components in place and separate them from the electronics. This was a great experience and I learned so much about 3d ddesign and printing. The design is what ultimatedly led to the name of my project 'The Weather Box', due to my entry level design skills the design is a bit simple and bulky.
All of this functionality allowed me to accomplish my goal of knowing what clothing was appropriate and getting a quick weather forecast for the day. I added a line sensor to detect when a finger is covering it which in the future will allow me a user to swipe through pages of functionality such as news, stock quotes, and countdown to holidays.
Hardware components:
Adafruit 7-Segment 0.56" 4-Digit 7-Segment Display w/I2C Backpack
Breadboard (generic)
Jumper wires (generic)
SparkFun Serial Enabled 16x2 LCD - White on Black 3.3Vgeneric 16X2 character LCD
Breadboard trim potentiometer
KY-033 Line tracking sensor
Software apps and online services:
Weather Underground
Fusion 360
Hand tools and fabrication machines:
3D Printer (generic)
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