Overview
How It Works
The Components
Steps
Building and Painting the Wooden Case
Wiring
Enable The Alexa Skill
The Board
The Code

Published September 3, 2018 © GPL3+

Box Bot: A Box Tops for Education Project

An open source hardware project integrated with Amazon Alexa to encourage families to tinker together and raise money for local schools.

BeginnerFull instructions provided1 hour1,161

Box Bot: A Box Tops for Education Project

Things used in this project

Hardware components

NodeMCU ESP8266 Breakout Board

Jumper wires (generic)

SparkFun Pushbutton switch 12mm

LED (generic)

Micro-USB to USB Cable (Generic)

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Amazon Alexa Alexa Voice Service

Story

Overview

I was cleaning out a drawer in my kitchen when I noticed a ton of Box Tops for Education (BT4E) coupons. I noticed that many of these were expired which was upsetting. This got me thinking of a few things: my daughter will be going to school in a few years so I should be more proactive in donating, these are preferred to be donated in lots of 50 so how can we make this easier on the coordinator, and how can we make it easier to track the impact we've made in our communities. This resulted in Box Bot. Box Bot is a very simple, DIY hardware project meant to encourage parents and kids (and even classrooms) to build a simple device together that helps them keep track of collected BT4E coupons. It's integrated with Amazon Alexa so families can know how much they and their schools are collecting at any time. This is part of my submission for the "Amazon Alexa Tech For Good" challenge in hopes of making an impact in local communities.

How It Works

Box Bot has three LEDs and a button built into the wooden box. Each time a box top is deposited, push the button and it will send a request to AWS to let it know one was added. The LEDs will stay on for second letting you know it was successful. After 50 tops have been deposited, Box Bot will blink for a while letting you know it is time to donate the tops.

The Components

Aside from the listed components, you'll need the items below. You can build this for about $20:

A small wooden box. I got mine for $3 box at Hobby Lobby but you can find these at any craft store or build your own.

A power drill

Hobby saw or box cutter

Spray paint and/or acrylic paint (depending on your design)

A micro USB cable (Dollar Tree)

A USB Port to Electrical Outlet (Dollar Tree)

A snack size Ziploc bag

Steps

Build the box

Paint the box

Wire everything and secure in place

Enable the Alexa app

Import the code into Arduino and change the necessary variables

Flash the ESP8266 board

Building and Painting the Wooden Case

The first thing we'll want to do is remove the clasp that the box comes with if purchasing the same box. I also had to loosen the hinge screws just a bit so it would close completely

1 / 3 • The exact box used.

Next, we can cut two thin slits about the size of an 1/8 drill bit to fit our ESP8266 board.

Next, we can put a slit in the middle of the box. This will be the opening to for box tops to go. I used a box cutter to make a small slit about 2 inches wide.

Now that we've done that, we can drill four holes to the left of the opening for our push button that will signal that we've put a box top into Box Bot. We can use a 7/64 drill bit for the larger holes to accommodate our female jumper wires and 1/16 drill bit for two of the legs that will not be used.

To the right of the opening, we can drill a 3/16 hole for our top LED. It's a tight squeeze and it will say in place.

Our last part with the drill will involve drilling two 3/16 holes for the eyes of Box Bot like our previous step. When we're done with the drilling, we can spray paint Box Bot then paint the eyes and mouth. You don't have to do a robot. Be creative! Make a video game character or Frankenstein for Halloween!

Our final step is to wire everything.

Finished product

Wiring

We'll have a few wires running across the inside of the box so we'll want to make sure they're secure and out of the way. A Fritzing diagram is provided below.

1 / 3 • Fritzing diagram below. We can bend the LEDs to go against the sides so they'll be out of the way. We can add a piece of electrical tape or something similar to keep the wires in place at the top.

Enable The Alexa Skill

You can enable the Alexa skill by using the Alexa app. The skill is called "Box Bot: A Box Tops for Education counter". Once it's enabled, simply say "Alexa, tell box bot to send me an api token." You will be sent all of the necessary information to connect to the AWS/Box Bot API. You'll need to put this in your code before flashing to the ESP8266.

The Board

I used a NodeMCU ESP 8266 board because of the price point and wireless capabilities. You can certainly use something else like an Arduino board with a wireless add-on.

The Code

The code is short and simple and can be found below. I've included comments throughout in hopes that it is easy to follow along. Connect the micro USB cable to the ESP8266 board and a computer. Bring up Arduino IDE (if you don't have it installed, you can get it here). In order to flash the ESP8266, you'll need install the right libraries in the Arduino IDE. This takes less than a minute to do with this guide.

Box Bot has two main operations. The first is to send a request to AWS once we push the button to tell that we've put a coupon into box bot. The lights will come on briefly and disappear. The second is to notify us that we've reached 50 coupons. Box Bot will blink 10 times to tell us to it's time to donate!

You'll need to change lines 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 in the code. When you've made the changes, you're ready to compile and upload.

Code

bt4e

#include <WiFiClientSecure.h>
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>

const char* ssid = "YOUR_SSID"; //Edit this line - add the SSID of our network
const char* password = "YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD"; //Edit this line - add the wifi password
const int httpsPort = 443; //443 is the standard port used for HTTPS
WiFiClientSecure client; // Initialize the Wifi client library
String uri = "URI_FROM_ALEXA"; //Edit this line
String host = "HOST_FROM_ALEXA"; //Edit this line
String api_key = "API_KEY_FROM_ALEXA"; //Edit this line

int pushbutton = D0; // define the push button
int led1 = D1; // this will define our first LED
int led2 = D2; //this will define our second LED
int led3 = D3; //this will define our third LED
int val; //define a numeric variable to hold our HIGH and LOW signals
int fifty_counter = 0; //this will keep track of our bundle of 50
String PostData = "{\"api_key\": \""+api_key+"\", \"count\": \"1\"}";

void setup()
{
  pinMode(led1, OUTPUT); // LED pin as output
  pinMode(led2, OUTPUT); // LED pin as output
  pinMode(led3, OUTPUT); // LED pin as output
  pinMode(pushbutton, INPUT); //pushbutton as input
  WiFi.begin(ssid, password); //connect to our Wifi network
  delay(10000); // wait 10 seconds for connection
}

void loop()
{
  val=digitalRead(pushbutton); //read the value of the sensor
  if(val == LOW) // if the button is pushed, blink the lights  
  {
    digitalWrite(led1,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(led2,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(led3,HIGH);
    delay(400);
    sendPost(); //function for sending the data to AWS
    fifty_counter++; // increase our variable keeping track of when we reach 50
    if (fifty_counter == 50){ //50 is the number we want the counter to stop for bagging - we can use 5 for testing
      fifty_counter = 0; // Reset the center to zero
      LedRoutine(); //function for blinking the lights 10 times
  }
  }
  else
  {
    digitalWrite(led1,LOW); //keep the lights off
    digitalWrite(led2,LOW);
    digitalWrite(led3,LOW);
  }
}

//If the button has been pushed 50 times, blink the lights 10 times before resetting
void LedRoutine()
{
  for (int i = 0; i <= 10; i++){
    digitalWrite(led1,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(led2,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(led3,HIGH);
    delay(200);
    digitalWrite(led1,LOW);
    digitalWrite(led2,LOW);
    digitalWrite(led3,LOW);
    delay(200);
  }
}

//This is a function to connect to AWS and send notification we've collected a Box Top
void sendPost()
{
    if (client.connect(host, httpsPort)){
      client.println("POST /"+ uri +" HTTP/1.1"); 
      client.println("Host: "+ host);
      client.println("User-Agent: Esp8266");
      client.println("Content-type: application/json");
      client.println("Connection: close");
      client.print("Content-length: ");
      client.println(PostData.length());
      client.println();
      client.println(PostData);
    }
}

Credits

Michael Portera

4 projects • 15 followers

Box Bot: A Box Tops for Education Project