VO-CH -- Air Monitoring Droid

Here are the files for VO-CH 

He is a Air Quality Monitoring Droid which keeps an eye on the VOC Levels in our maker room and turns on the Fan when appropriate (when we forget. lol) and off again when the levels are lower.

to make one of your own you will need the following

• 1 x Arduino Uno
• 1 x Breadboard
• 1 x SG90 Servo
• 1 x DFPlayer Mini MP3 Player Module
• 1 x Micro SD Card to hold your audio files
• 1 x 1k Resistor
• 1 x Red LED
• 1 x CCS811 Air Quality Sensor
• 1 x JST-SH to male Dupoint (Breadboard Compatible) cable
• 1 x 60mm round speaker (I got mine from an old broken CD Player)
• A selection of hook up wires
• about 6 M3 thread knurled brass nut press fit inserts
• 4 x Hex Head M3 x 12 screws
• some double sided tape (only a little to hold the sensor)
• and a USB Cable for if you want to leave him plugged in.
• I also made use of some solder, superglue, Hot Glue and 5 min epoxy

Chassis Preassembly - 

I separated the capsules and arms from the chassis to allow them to be printed in a contrasting colour if you wish, these parts can all be glued into place with a few drops of superglue.

the chassis lid was designed with colour changes on the printer in mind, I switched for the top details including the speaker and neck rings then back again for the speaker top and grille

I have included mounting holes inside the chassis to hold the Arduino, these need some heat inserts (i used just 2 diagonally) and space to the right for the bread board to be positioned with its sticky backing.

I then also added the 4 x heat inserts on the top edge of the chassis ready for the lid

first you will want to route the wires for the sensor through the hole on the RH Side, and attach the sensor into the indent using the tab of double sided (foam) tape

I hooked up the CCS811 sensor as per the instructions from Adafruit

Overview | Adafruit CCS811 Air Quality Sensor | Adafruit Learning System

then the DFPlayer as per the following link

Play audio in Arduino - Arduino Project Hub

you will want 2 x MP3 files on the Micro SD Card, one named 0001 for when the VOC's are high and one called 0002 for when its low.

put your SD Card in the players SD Card Slot

the speaker was then glued into position in the Chassis Lid with hot glue, and the Horn with 4 x lugs (which came with the servo) was glued over the hole in the center of the “Neck Ring” using some 5 min epoxy.

Head Preassembly -

the Head, Side Panels, Top wedges, Lens Ring and Top Cap are all spit for either access or for printing in different colours if you choose to

You should glue the lens ring into place, I then painted the inside of the ring black for added effect. I also glued the side panel in at this time

the Red LED was soldered onto some hook up wires and then hot glued into the back of the eye in the head, the servo was then attached to the inside of the head with the gear facing downwards. the wires were pushed down through the back RH opening at the bottom of the head.

the top of the head can now be attached by screwing it on, this is fiddley so take your time.

the top wedges can now be glues onto the head.

Assembly

now feed the heads wires through the triangular hole on the chassis lid and attach the head to the chassis lid by pushing the servo gear into the horns, the screw can be inserted and fixed through the hole on the underside to lock the servo (and head) into position.

you should now be able to connect the servo wires up to the breadboard as per the instructions on the Servo Sweep sketch

Arduino - Sweep

and the Speaker wires get hooked up to the DFPlayer again on the breadboard.

I know its a bit of a cheat but I also connected the LED to the speaker output so that the eye would flash when VO speaks.

you can now screw down the Chassis lid closing up the droid. and push in your USB cable into the Arduino through the rear port.

there are key hole slots on the underside of VO so yo can hang him from a shelf or leave him sat on a worktop. its up to you.

The Code

I have included the code that I used in VO, I would like to say that I have never attempted anything like this before and I am definitely just a learner, if you know how to code please be kind. lol

I managed to cobble this code together by borrowing from the code in the examples above, while being nudged in right direction by Kari Lawler (thanks for putting up with my MANY questions. lol)

Completion

the droid is going to control a smart switch attached to a extractor fan, as part of the home automation this switched will be attached to Alexa.

I made the Droid talk to Alexa rather than going for direct control because

1. As I'm learning I didn't want to have to try and learn how to leverage an API for either the switch or Amazon, 
2. if  that API was ever changed it would have stopped VO from working.

I figured make him talk and let Alexa do the rest of the heavy lifting

     And 3. lets face it a Droid talking to a droid is just Cool. :-)

I hope you enjoy VO-CH 

Thanks

Bugman

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