Introduction: Save Your Food Ambient Display

Most of us have probably thrown out food due to spoilage, but regularly doing this is terribly wasteful and expensive. That’s why we decided to build a smart display that indicates the freshness of food items like vegetables, fruits, milk, meat, bread, bakery item etc.

We have indicated the items by display the best thing that depict the products in the fridge.

Step 1: Material and Tools Used

Materials:

  • Clear Acrylic
  • Particle Photon (x2)
  • Soft wood for base of display and enclosure of Photon
  • RFID Reader and Tags
  • Neopixel LED strips(4 strips)
  • LED
  • Wires

Tools:

  • Laser Cutter for engraving and cutting
  • Glue Gun
  • Soldering Iron

Step 2: Decide the Data That Is Displayed and Write the Codes

We decided to go with food products.
The food items have types and colors associated with them as shown below:

Type 1: Dairy (Blue)
Type 2: Meat (White)
Type 3: Produce (Green)
Type 4: Wheat (Yellow)

All tags have data stored in them which points to the type and expiry data.

The input code reads the values from RFID tags and sends it over the internet to the other photon.
The connections are shown below:
SDA-A2
SCK-A3
MOSI-A5
MISO-A4
RST-D2
LED-D7(to show that the card was scanned)

Use the rfid.h and rfid.cpp; use the software mode in the code from https://github.com/pkourany/RC522_RFID.

The output code displays the data received from the input photon onto the neopixel LED strips.
The connections are shown below:
Neopixel LED strips - D1,D2,D3,D4.

Attachments

Step 3: Cut and Etch the Wood and Acrylic

Use the Illustrator files to cut and etch wood and Acrylic.

Finally assemble the pieces using Glue Gun.

Attachments

Step 4: Finish