-
-
A close-up of the LCD display with the green LED in the background.
-
A screenshot of the app.
Inspiration
After getting into cryptocurrency last year, I always wanted to see the price of my favorite coins without having to open up an app or a website. That, combined with an Arduino Uno starter kit I had lying around and a general knowledge of Android app development, made this project seem like a reasonable choice.
What it does
The Crypto Tracker depicts "BTC" and a fake price in USD, refreshing the price every second. If the price increases by one, the green LED lights up, and if it decreases by one, the red LED lights up. In addition, an app with several controls is supposed to provide remote operation, but we never got around to fully implementing it, much less getting real BTC price info from the Internet.
How we built it
Due to the pandemic, building this project was mostly a division of labor. Since I (Nick) had the Arduino kit, I elected to build the circuit and write the accompanying C# sketch while Shad worked on building the Android app. That said, we communicated over text messaging, Zoom, and Slack to clarify stuff, check our progress, and give each other feedback.
Challenges we ran into
Originally, this project was supposed to be based off the ESP8266 module, which offers WiFi capability, in order to query real crypto data from the CoinDesk API. However, for whatever reason, it did not work either of two displays I had, and by the time I switched to the tried-and-true offline Arduino Uno and 16x2 LCD display, it was too late to attempt to connect to the Internet. In addition, Shad had challenges transferring the HTML stuff he learned for web development to Android app development, since the formatting and requirements were a little different.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're mostly proud of persevering through the many challenges we faced, as this was our first real hackathon and we had no idea what to expect. We're also proud of producing both a physical and digital product, which really shows the power of teamwork and cooperation.
What we learned
We learned a lot about both Arduino and Android development. Specifically, I learned much about basic circuitry and coding in C# while Shad learned about Android app layout and dealing with drawables and toggles switches.
What's next for Crypto Tracker
Obviously, fully implementing what we had in mind, which is a real-time display of a cryptocurrency's price that can be controlled remotely via an app.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.