I’ve had this idea for a while where I wanted to build something that is interactive and can help give someone a little bit of motivation. From these vague goals the Motivation Station was born. The basic design is pretty simple, press a button and a recording plays back of a motivational statement.

The recordings that get played will all be submitted or recorded for the project, and part of the goal is to be able to update the library with new recordings made on site with an Android device, using FTP or another file transfer protocol.

This post is going to be a collection of my random notes and ideas, later posts will hopefully be of the build itself!

The code so far can be found on my GitHub check it out it’s my first time using python!

Design needs to be:

  • Sturdy enough to withstand major wind dust
  • Protected from getting run over by asshats
  • Radically lit at night.
  • Power is hidden/not accessible (solar!)
  • Audio needs to be loud enough and clear.

Interactivity:

  • Has a low power attract mode.
  • Encourages pressing button with hand by being lit
  • Receives a recorded motivational quote
  • Info that during certain times we can record new motivational statements that reflect what is happening at the event.

Maintaining Project:

  • Daily maintainence check
    • Check power
    • clean off solar panel
    • Upload new clips.

Power:

  • 12v deep cycle battery
  • 12v solar charger and regulator

Equipment:

  • Router that we can turn off when not in use. Utilized to use ftp to update the quotes folder.

Redundancy:

  • Backup battery
  • Backup solar panel?
  • Backup raspberry pi
  • Backup image of SD card.
  • Misc buttons, interconnects.

Install

  1. Start with base raspbian image
  2. Apt get update and upgrade
  3. Apt get install mpeg321 (required component)
  4. Create folder “motivation” with sub folders “quotes” and “jingle”
  5. create motivation.py in same directory that “motivation” is in.
  6. Use sftp to add files.
  7. Attach button to GPIO (x)
  8. Set static ip.