PartieBot

Finished PartieBot
Dispenser prototypes
The soldering for the OLED display
Our teammate making refining touches

Inspiration

Before starting this project, we knew we wanted to make something that would not only challenge us technically and mentally, but also something that would actually help us in our daily lives.

All of us love to visit the Makerspaces, but sometimes, it’s a pain to search for the parts we need, and once we find it, we’ve spent 20 minutes digging through a bucket filled with miscellaneous screws or scraping through a tray filled with mixed-up resistors.

Our solution: a parts vending machine that uses AI to dispense exactly the parts you need, at the click of a button.

Challenges we ran into

We encountered many challenges, including servos not powering on due to a power supply current limitation issues, making a push-rod that was small and rigid enough, the wiring in our chassis being very messy, and much more.

What we learned

We learned lots about how to avoid these power supply current limitation issues by using a power source that is able to provide enough current for the servos, being creative with what we knew about our current parts and the malleability of their material, and improvisation of parts with old components along with trimming wires and soldering.

How we built it

We kept our components simple, and focused on the code. For the components, we used 4 servos, an ESP32, and a 1.5 inch OLED display. We bought an acrylic box to house the final design and rubber bands to apply tension to the dispensers. We refined the wiring with trimming and soldering the wires, double sided tape, and cable sleeves. We used Codex and ChatGPT to code our firmware and website.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the aesthetics of the final product, the simplicity of the user experience, and how smooth the dispensing mechanisms work. Overall, we think this device is pleasant and easy to work with, and we are very proud that we were able to achieve this in such a short amount of time.

What's next for PartieBot

We hope to expand this idea into a full vending machine with many more parts that can be installed in college makerspaces, high schools, or even in at-home-labs. With this, engineering will be accessible to all and individuals will be able to start engineering or continue engineering with much less friction.