## Inspiration

We were inspired by Michael Reeves, a YouTuber who is known for his "useless inventions." We all enjoy his videos and creations, so we thought it would be cool if we tried it out too.

## What it does

Abyss. is a table that caves in on itself and drops any item that is placed onto it into the abyss.

## How we built it

Abyss. was built with an Arduino UNO, breadboard, a table and Arduino parts to control the table. It uses a RADAR sensor to detect when something is placed on the table and then controls the servo motors to drop the table open.

## Challenges we ran into

Due to the scale of our available parts and materials, we had to downsize from a full-sized table/nightstand to a smaller one to accommodate the weak, smaller servo motors. Larger ones need more than the 5V that the UNO provides to work. We also ran into trouble with the Arduino code since we were all new to Arduinos. We also had a supply chain issue with Amazon simply not shipping the motors we ordered. Also, the "servo motors", or as they were labelled, turned out to be regular step-down motors.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're happy that the project is working and the results are quite fun to watch.

## What we learned

We learned a lot about Arduinos and construction. We did a lot of manual work with hand-powered tools to create our table and had to learn Arduinos from scratch to get the electronics portion working.

## What's next for Abyss.

We hope to expand this project to a full-sized table and integrate everything on a larger scale. This could include a more sensitive sensor, larger motors and power tools to make the process easier.
## Inspiration

In online documentaries, we saw visually impaired individuals and their vision consisted of small apertures. We wanted to develop a product that would act as a remedy for this issue.

## What it does

When a button is pressed, a picture is taken of the user's current view. This picture is then analyzed using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and the text is extracted from the image. The text is then converted to speech for the user to listen to.

## How we built it

We used a push button connected to the GPIO pins on the Qualcomm DragonBoard 410c. The input is taken from the button and initiates a python script that connects to the Azure Computer Vision API. The resulting text is sent to the Azure Speech API.

## Challenges we ran into

Coming up with an idea that we were all interested in, incorporated a good amount of hardware, and met the themes of the makeathon was extremely difficult. We attempted to use Speech Diarization initially but realized the technology is not refined enough for our idea. We then modified our idea and wanted to use a hotkey detection model but had a lot of difficulty configuring it. In the end, we decided to use a pushbutton instead for simplicity in favour of both the user and us, the developers.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

This is our very first Makeathon and we were proud of accomplishing the challenge of developing a hardware project (using components we were completely unfamiliar with) within 24 hours. We also ended up with a fully function project.

## What we learned

We learned how to operate and program a DragonBoard, as well as connect various APIs together.

## What's next for Aperture

We want to implement hot-key detection instead of the push button to eliminate the need of tactile input altogether.
## Inspiration

Our project was inspired by geocaching. Geocaching is the idea of crowdsourcing scavenger hunts where users can hide caches throughout a city and other users can go on adventures to discover them.

Team:
Dee Lucic
Matt Mitchell
Keshav Chawla
Alexei dela Pena

For this project we wanted to use the follow concepts:

1. The idea of scavenger hunts / finding things in the environment
2. Staying active and "taking care of yourself" to support Wealthsimple's motto
3. To go on an adventure, and to "push your limits" with Mountain Dew's motto
4. To use Indico image recognition API to recognize these scavenger hunt objects
5. Use Twitter to share photos of scavenger hunt objects

## What it does

We have developed a marketing tool that is a Pepsi/Mountain Dew app that gives the users a list of tasks (scavenger hunt items) that the user needs to find in the environment. The tasks satisfy an active lifestyle like taking a picture of a ping pong ball. When the user finds the item, they take a picture of it and the app will verify if the item is correct through image recognition. If enough items are found, then the app will unlock a DewTheDew fridge, which will vend free Mountain Dew to the lucky winner. All photos are posted on Twitter under the hastag: DoForDew

## How I built it

Our app is an iOS app built in Swift. It communicates with our local PHP webservice that is hosted on a laptop. The iOS app also tweets our photos. The PHP webservice calls python scripts that call the Indico image recognition API. The webservice also sends serial commands on the USB port to the fridge which contains an arduino. The arduino is programmed to process serial commands and control an analog servo motor that locks and unlocks the door of the fridge.

## Challenges I ran into

We initially tried to communicate directly with the arduino from the iOS app using bluetooth but the arduino bluetooth libraries, and the iOS bluetooth libraries are complicated, and we would not have enough time to implement the code in time.

## Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The app developer is new to iOS and Swift and we are happy with what we have created so far. The webservice is very powerful and it can handle different expansions if required. To make the fridge we had to go to a local hardware store and find the parts to create a working model in time. The challenge was difficult but we are happy with the progress so far.

## What I learned

All the developers on our team are inexperienced and we are happy that we were able to integrate all these in just a day's worth of development. We learned how to make UIs in iOS, how to pass information over PHP, Serial communications, and REST APIs.

## What's next for DoTheDew HackTheFridge

The next thing to do is to integrate bluetooth into the iOS app and set up a bluetooth shield on the arduino. Also, the Inico image recognition APIs can be called from the iOS app too. Once these two changes are made, then we will no longer require the webservice server and we can get rid of the laptop. That's the first step to creating a standalone product. After that we'll be able to create a real fridge.