Storacle

• 

  the box

Spoiler: we didn't finish.

Inspiration

MMO guildbanks and geocaches. Storage oracle = storacle

What it does ((What it's meant to do))

A box with a camera and weight sensor. Each registered user can take or leave anything they want, but each transaction is tracked and logged. An ultrasound sensor detects the box closing. The objects are recognized by their shape and size with opencv (e.g. a triangle of size 10) (this works), and uploaded to the cockroachdb database. The next time the box is closed, the objects would be downloaded and looked for in the new image. We also intended to use a load sensor (scrapped from a kitchen scale) to corroberate the camera's findings, however we could not amplify the output enough for it to be readable via our beaglebone's analog input.

How I built it

Challenges I ran into

• opencv is HARD for object recognition.
• reverse engineering a scale and reading its low voltage sensor is hard
• azure and running cockroachdb on it is hard and very difficult to debug.
• physical construction of the device out of a cardboard box, stickers (in lieu of tape), and components.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

• Detecting the shapes of objects.
• Hooking up cockroachdb to Flask and sucessfully writing and reading the db from the web.
• Not sleeping for 28 hours.

What I learned

• Best practices for databases from the mentors.

- How azure works and how to deploy to it (rather different from AWS and GAE).

What's next for Storacle

Built With

• azure
• cockroachdb
• electronics
• opencv
• python
• raspberry-pi