Project Dora: When We Set Out to Build One Thing and Ended Up with Something Else
You know how sometimes you sit around, trying to come up with the next big project, and bamânothing. Just a blank stare and a whole lot of procrastination. Well, thatâs exactly where we were when this idea hit us out of the blue.
âHey, what if we used an ultrasonic sensor to make a digital measuring tape?ââthe kind that could tell you the distance between two points or even give you the length of a room? Sounded cool, right? Until we realized we were working with a sensor thatâs worth less than a cup of coffee and tends to give readings like a confused GPS. But, challenge accepted!
From Brainstorm to Breadboard
Once we got the idea rolling, it started to take shape. The key player here was the ESP-NOW protocol, letting two ESP32 boards talk to each other like old pals. Now, we couldâve built this whole thing with just one ESP32⊠but then again, whereâs the fun in that? Weâre human, and part of the joy is making things slightly more complicated than they need to be, right?
So hereâs how it worked: one ESP32 read the data from the ultrasonic sensor and then passed it on to its buddy ESP32, which was plugged into our PC. That second ESP displayed the distance on a web appâbecause why settle for a plain-old terminal display when you can add a web app into the mix? (And no, donât ask us why we did it⊠some madness is always needed in every project.)
Is It Working? Sort ofâŠ
After a few cups of coffee and maybe a lot more trial-and-error than weâd like to admit, the device started to behave. (Atleast that's what I like to say but I didn't have coffee.) We were getting some values that kind of represented the distance of the room. But then we had to explain it to people, which turned out to be a whole new circus.
One fine day, we were at our wit's endâzero energy left after yet another trial of almost blasting the lab (just kiddingâwe were just experimenting with something involving a bit too much current).one of our colleagues walked in, with zero energy left to explain this thingâs inner workings,. Instead of boring them with tech jargon, we just held the sensor at head height, aimed it down, and said, âLook! Itâs measuring your heigh (To be honest, it wasnât too far off.). And her height was almost 159cm (approx. height of Dora The Explorer). Thus the Dora (ruler) was invented.
She believed it. Actually understood the project as some digital height-measuring gadget. It was hilarious because here we were, thinking weâd built a room-length calculator, and it ended up being a height measurer instead.
The âWhy-Do-You-Do-This-to-Usâ Moment đ€Š
But wait, the comedy of errors didnât end there. The real test came when we tried to shoot a demo video. I mean, during testing, the thing worked just fine (more or less), which was honestly a small miracle. But as soon as we hit the record button, this device turned into a drama queen.
It started throwing out numbers so wrong, even for close objects, that we seriously considered banging heads to the walls (yes, thatâs what thala thali pottikan thonii means, for our non-Malayali friends). Imagine: every time we had no one around, it would act perfectly fineâthen the moment it sensed a camera lens, it decided to audition for the role of âMost Annoying Device Ever.âAlmost like it had a sixth sense. If it were a person, weâd swear it had stage fright! Talk about Murphyâs Law in action.
Lessons Learned: Plan Less, Laugh More
What did we learn? Sometimes you set out to build one thing, and you end up with something entirely different. And thatâs okay. We didnât create the most precise digital measuring tape, but we did get a few laughs and learned a ton along the way.
So, hereâs to Project Doraâour unexpected digital tape-measure-slash-height-calculator. If you want to build on it, go right ahead (RepositoryLink). Just donât forget: the best projects always have a sprinkle of randomness and a whole lot of fun.
Amith-Abey-Stephen
