Miss Fortune Teller

Did you ever feel stuck and wait for a sign from something bigger to lead you? Because we created it, probably not the way that you imagined... Our Miss Fortune Teller is designed maybe not to guide you in life, but to make you have fun- your problems are really stupid for her and she doesn't love to listen to people.

Project by:

Luiza Longo, Ceren Tüfek, Ali Zolfaghari

This project was conducted as part of the Computational Design and Digital Fabrication seminar in the ITECH masters program.

• Arduino UNO
• 8 ohm speaker
• TTP223B (touch sensor)
• MQ3 (alcohol sensor)
• TMP36 (temperature sensor)
• Acrylic bowl (20cm in diameter)
• SD Card Module
• SD Card (the Arduino module supports micro SD up to 2GB or Micro SDHC up to 32GB)
• Wood (with thickness according to your laser cutter)
• 3D printer and filament
• DC Motor
• Rollers
• 6 bolts, 12 nuts (⌀6mm)
• 4 bolts, 8 nuts (⌀3mm)
• 9V batteries
• Push button
• 10k ohm resistor
• Breadboard
• Hook-up wire
• 9V DC motor
• TIP120 transistor
• 1N4001 diode
• Jumpers (male to male, female to male)

This useless fortune teller will gather data input from sensors and give also useless advice over its speakers.

In order to make one yourself, the first step is to prepare the hardware, including its outer shell and planetary gear.

outer shell:

The plates as seen above can be fabricated using a laser cutter. The outer shell holds the components, contains instructions for user and holds the crystal ball. You can control its height by adjusting the nuts.

gear box:

This part of the system is meant to be 3d printed.

The gear box consists of a fixed gear ring which is enveloping all the parts and 3 rotating gears with the help of bearings which have been activated with the help of a central gear which has been connected to the DC motor. All 4 gears have been assembled on a triangle platform with a bearing system and the platform has been connected to the DC motor canopy with an additional bearing to be freely rotated. The rollers are connected to the center of the 3d printed parts. This re-configured rotary mechanism creates a solar system like rotation mechanism to upgrade the fortune teller.

If you have an acrylic bowl with 20cm in diameter, as well as ⌀6mm and ⌀3mm bolts, you can directly use the available files- if you have this components in different sizes, you need to edit both files!

Now you should lay out possibilities for user interaction and plan which files should play according to the values that are read by the Arduino. Above is a suggestion of interaction workflow- it is necessary to plan which sensors will work in what order, and also the possible messages to be played.

Now it's time to record the files with the desired messages. They should have the following settings so they are Arduino compatible:

1. Format : PCM
2. Format settings : Unsigned
3. Sampling rate: 16.0kHz
4. Bit depth: 8 bits
5. Number of channels: mono (1 channel)

We recommend using Audacity and following the steps as shown.

Don't forget to name your file with less than 8 characters, since there may be limitations with reading files with long names.

Next, save them to your SD Card.

For more info on creating audio files for Arduino click here.

With all the hardware and audio files ready, you can start to assemble the circuit as shown.

So the setup is coherent with the code that will be provided later on,make sure the following Arduino pins are connected to each of the components:

• temperature sensor to pin A0;
• push button* to pin 2;
• dc motor to pin 5;
• ultrasonic sensor:
• trigPin to pin 3
• echoPin to pin 6
• touch sensor signal to pin 7;
• alcohol sensor signal to pin A0;
• sd card module:
• CS to pin 4;
• SCK to pin 13;
• MOSI to pin 11;
• MISO to pin 12;
• speaker input to pin 4.

(this button is used for independent control of the motor only while testing. It will be controlled via pin 5 the code during the interaction)

You can find detailed info on each component here: motor, speaker and sd, touch sensor, temperature sensor, alcohol sensor, ultrasonic sensor.

Paste the code on the attached file on the Arduino interface. We recommend using the Serial Monitor to check whether all the components are working correctly.

Remember to adapt your user interaction by referencing the audio files according to their names and adjusting the corresponding delays so they match the length of each file.

Control the rotation of the motor as desired, according to planned workflow.

Also make sure the sensors are working in the right order, according to the user interaction you planned.

Assemble the fortune teller by connecting the two wood plates and placing the planetary gear with the motor in the center.

Also attach the sensors and speaker with glue or velcro to the upper plate.

Place the breadboard in the place in between.

Now have fun interacting with this useless, unempathetic Miss Fortune Teller!