Thank You for taking the time to read this.
I just thought I’d drop you guys a line and let you know how my girlfriends
daughter and I used one your tutorials, along with some of your products, to
make a project for grade school.Here in the local area of Michigan there is a competition known as
Kettering. Which is hosted by Kettering University, and in this competition
each elementary student is to come up with something that has yet to be
invented.This year Eve (not her real name) decided she was going to make an all in
one sleep center. Which she affectionately named “Sleep Tight”. It was to
encompass a night light, sound machine, fan, snack, and drink.Due to the size (or lack there of) of our home 3d printer the MP Delta Mini,
we were limited as to what we could do to make a housing for it.So we had to ditch the fan. Which was OK since we decided the sound machine
was enough white noise on it’s own.After we settled on the 8th rendition of the housing, then came the
difficult part. The part that I had been dreading since the start of this
project. How was I going to make this thing play soft rain sounds?I started looking at using a Pi zero W, as I have several of them. I quickly
realized that wasn’t the road I wanted to go down. As the amount of coding
to get it to play sounds thru the gpio was way more involved than I was
prepared for.I’m a mechanic by trade, not a programmer. Though I am slowly learning, or
trying to anyways.Enter the Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board. As it happens I was watching a
video that popped up in my news feed on youtube about how to make your car
horn sound nice. The maker referenced your sound board and I thought I know
them, that’s where I get my Pi’s from.I immediately looked up your soundboard and low and behold found your
tutorial on Cup o’ Sound. Watched the video and had a wave of relief pour
over me as here was the answer to my prayers. Literally!You’re tutorial made this project so easy for us that I don’t even have the
words to express it.Though I would probably add in the directions that when a file is loaded
onto the board it needs to be named in correspondence with the actuating pin
on the gpio.Back to the project.
We then 3D printed the housing for the speaker, board, and night light. 3D
printed the cups for the snack and drink and assembled the unit. We then
took a step back to admire our months of hard work. Yes it was months as we
had to learn how to use the 3D printer, tinkercad, and slic3r and having
zero prior time with any of that it was definitely a learning experience.Back to the reason I’m writing you today.
Eve, entered her project in the school competition and, not to my surprise,
she was invited to the regional’s held at Kettering Univeristy.She then attended Kettering’s Invite and yet again, not to my surprise, she
was invited to the state competition being held at Henry Ford Museum this
coming April.I said all that to tell you that you’re module and tutorial was a God send
when I didn’t know what I was going to do. That and to relate that you’re
module and tutorial were being used in a manner which probably wasn’t in the
original plans when the video was made. Which should just go to show you how
great you’re products and learning center really are.Well OK maybe a little bit of bragging on Eve and her dreaming up of new
ideas too!!I will keep you apprised as to her progress should it continue to the
nationals.Thank You!!
James
