Introduction: Magic Sports Betting 8-Ball

I'm bad at sports betting so I made a Magic 8-Ball to recommend bets for me. For all the ink that has been spilled over how to lock in a sure-fire bet, the fact of the matter is that even the most successful sports bettors in the world only hit on 60% of their bets. When we can’t trust our gut and we can’t trust logic, we might as well outsource these decisions to machines and let the fates decide.

Here’s how it is intended to work: With an integrated vibration sensor, the device detects when a person is shaking the object and queries ChatGPT through an API Key with a prompt that asks ChatGPT to scour the daily betting markets and identify inefficiencies in the market that can be exploited. This takes into account betting markets, performance trends, opponent analysis, and similar game scenarios to identify one bet at a time. I was able to complete a prototype that surfaces a random bet, because I had trouble with OpenAI's terms of service. With more experimentation with the prompt, I believe this would work as designed. My goal for this project was to immerse myself in AI tools so that I can begin to understand how they can be best integrated into devices.


Supplies

Arduino ESP32 Nano

FeatherWing OLED 128x64

Clear Plastic Fillable Ornaments Ball (160mm diameter)

Black spray paint

Vinyl stickers

Hot Glue

Solder

Wiring

Jewelry Saw

Sandpaper

Painter Tape

3 AAA batteries

Medium Vibration Sensor Switch

Solderful BreadBoard

Gaffing Tape

Wire Cutters

Heat Gun

Heat Shrink Tubing

Step 1:

Used a jewelry saw to remove the hanger tags on the plastic ornament balls

Step 2:

Sanded down spot where the hanger tags were

Step 3:

Taped off window for display

Step 4:

Spray painted hemispheres matte black

Step 5:

Created 8 Ball logo in Adobe Illustrator and printed them as vinyl stickers. Affixed vinyl stickers to hemisphere

Step 6:

  1. Soldered circuit (Please note, The Arduino Uno in the below circuit diagram represents and Arduino ESP32 Nano)
  2. Soldered stranded wires to vibration switch and wrapped with heat-shrink tubing
  3. Soldered ESP32 board to Solderful BreadBoard
  4. Soldered vibration switch to Solderful BreadBoard
  5. Soldered Featherwing display to Solderful BreadBoard
  6. Soldered battery pack to ESP32

Step 7:

Used gaffing tape to affix the circuit to the interior of the sphere

Step 8:

Closed two hemispheres together

Step 9:

Extra Credit: printed and placed a DraftKings Sportsbook sticker

Step 10: Code

Attachments