Plummer's Unplugger

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  Preliminary sketches

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  Not actually sponsored by Subway (officially)

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  Working hard

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  The finished product

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  Testing equipment

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  We strived to use recycled materials where possible

Inspiration

We were inspired by the seemingly useless Unplugger robot created by Nik Ramage on Youtube, which, when switched on, would drive out from a wall outlet and unplug itself.

What it does

The Plummer's Unplugger saves energy by unplugging your phone once it's fully charged, in turn improving your phone's battery lifetime as well. It works by detecting an alarm set off by an app on the phone (which detects when the phone is fully charged) and then turns a servo motor pulling the charger out of the port on the phone.

How we built it

John was in charge of the mechanical design of the platform, servo, and charger remover while Junze coded the Arduino and built the electrical circuit and Bart coded the Android app using Android Studio.

Challenges we ran into

The first two motors we used were not powerful enough to pull the wire out of the charging port of the phone. As well, the Arduinos were finicky and the code would not always upload to them successfully. In Android Studio, checking the time and playing a sound were causing consistent errors and causing the app to crash.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We put together the entire mechanical component of the product in the time allotted. We learned a lot about a new coding environment, Android Studio, as well.

What we learned

Again, we learned a lot about Android Studio, and also some new things about coding with Arduinos and creating circuits.

What's next for Plummer's Unplugger

Develop app across other mobile platforms for phones other than Androids.

Built With

• android-studio
• arduino
• cardboard
• microphone
• servos
• skateboard-trucks