Business Card With Polaroid + Arduino

The goal of our project was to create a machine that produces business cards.
We decided to hack a polaroid exploiting the internal mechanism to create our personal business card that bear the logo of the Fab Lab Turin.

We replace the shutter with an RGB LED and, applying a diffuser, it generates a random color that imprints on a polaroid paper an image generated by a stencil placed over it.

Everything is managed by a program loaded on a Arduino connected with both the motor of the machine and the RGB LED.

Please note: to build this project you need an average skill in electronics and in programming.

After opening the machine, we have identified the components useful for our project and eliminated unnecessary ones to optimize the space available.

Components used:

• Self-starter
• Shutter

Components included:

• RGB LED
• Mosfet
• A power switch
• A button

Inputs:

• The button to start the machine process
  
• A switch that indicates when the self-starter has completed the process of printing

Outputs:

• RGB LED (Red, Green, Blue channels)
  
• Self-starter motor

We placed a button on the small metal plate which will then be read by Arduino like a button.

In this phase, we connected the following components to Arduino:

• The engine of Polaroid, connected by a Mosfet
  
• The switch adapted on the small strip of metal that rises to the completion of the rotation
  
• 3 channel of the RGB LED each connected to the NPN transistors
  
• The start button
  
• A switch of ignition

Now you can program the Arduino.

After having designed on a drawing digital software we cut the stencil on a plastic plate (1mm) using a laser cutter.

The stacil obtained was placed over the container of polaroid's cartridge which is loaded into the machine.

After about 40 minutes the polaroid is fully developed.