Project: Mesh Buttons
Mesh enabled buttons for interactions.
What are the mesh buttons?
The mesh buttons are big wireless buttons that can be controlled with an USB dongle. This can be controlled over UART which means that it can be done with almost every programmin language. Over UART will be communicated of when a button is pressed, double pressed or long pressed. Besides this you can also tell a button to do something, the buttons have LED lights with some pre programmed effects. They also have a speaker to play sounds or music, which you can load with the use of a SD card in the button. The buttons and dongle communicate in a mesh network, which means that you can locate them quite from each other. As long as the distance between two buttons is not to large. As they can commincate via each other to the dongle in your computer.
What can they be used for?
The buttons have orginally been developed to create a new interactive layer on playgrounds. The buttons could be used to create games by placing them all over the playground and controlling them with a computer. Later on they have been developed further to so they could be used by students in courses to create interactive experiences. This is done so they do not have to create such buttons from scratch, but can focus on making experiences with them.
What did i do?
I created everything for the buttons, this means designed and 3D printed the housing. Programmed the esp32 with all connected periferals. Made a custom PCB with the LED, i2s board, esp32 and button. And created a protocol so users can send commands over UART to communicate to do buttons via the dongle. Also made a python example game so students have a starting point when using it themselfes.