Motivational Words of the Day Box

The Motivational Words of the Day Box was developed for students with extensive support needs at Boston College's Campus School. After touring the Campus School, the project team noticed that every student had a morning routine. Every student began their day by reviewing the day’s agenda, and we want to be a part of their morning routine and give them the best verbal kickstart to their day. The project team created a physical motivational phrase bank (displayed on a Hub75) that would provide students with a motivational phrase to boost their morale.

When a student presses the wired clicker once, the screen displays a Baldwin Eagle animation with Boston College colors (bright red and gold), followed by "The motivational words of the day are..." and then displays a randomized phrase. If another student wants their own phrase, the clicker would be given to them, and once pressed, the animation would restart to give another student the same bright animation with another randomized phrase collected from the phrase bank.

The device was created to fulfill the need for an engaging and consistent source of morning motivation for students with extensive learning needs.

We hope this project motivates many students!

1. matrix portal m4
2. Hub75 64x32 RGB LED Matrix
3. 1/4 Baltic Birch wood
4. USB-C cord
5. Clicker attached to a TS cable
6. TS Cable adaptor

Let's make the box! We want to open-source a box generator. I recommend this one! After generating a file based on your Hub75 screen size, we want to open this file up in Adobe Illustrator (as shown above, outlined in red). If you want the Adobe Illustrator File, it is attached below! You can cut out holes on one of the box's sides, depending on where you want your wires to stick out! Now construct the box (glue is not needed; the box can hold itself tightly), but do not attach the front frame! (YET)

Grab your Matrix Portal m4 and Hub75 and attach your Matrix Portal m4 to the left side of your Hub75! It should slide right in. Then screw in your ground and red line wires connecting the Hub75 and the Matrix Portal m4. You want to get a clicker attached to a wire and expose the red and black wires from the clicker. Once you have it exposed, connect them to the A1 and GND holes of the Matrix Portal m4 through soldering. Next, let's glue the front frame to the Hub75. Finally, attach the front frame to the rest of the box!

Once your box is assembled and has dried from the glue. Plug in your USB-C cable into the board and connect it to your laptop. Once you achieve this, import this code and save it to your Matrix Portal m4!

Now enjoy your motivational words of the day!