Ghostbusters Wi-Fi Scanner

Overview

Build a fun Ghostbusters PKE style Wi-Fi scanner using a Raspberry Pi Pico, a couple of electronics and some 3d printed parts. The scanner will scan and display a list of all the local Wi-Fi hotspots, and change the position of the arms depending on the signal strength.

Bill of Materials

You will also need the following electronics:

3d Design

The Scanner is made up of several components:

• Back
• Left Arm
• Right Arm
• Middle section
• Back Layer
• Handle
• Top

Construction

1. Push the servo into the hole on the base
2. Place the LiPo Amigo pro, the Galleon battery onto the back, connecting up the battery to the LiPo Amigo Pro
3. There are mounting screws for the LiPo amigo Pro, though it can just float around in the compartment
4. Place the middle section on top of the base
5. Place the left arm and right arm on the underside of the Top section
6. Place the middle layer on top of the left arm and right arm
7. Push the servo cable through the hole in the top section and middle layer
8. Place the Pico W on to the top section with the pins facing up
9. Solder the wires onto the Pico Proto board as described above and push this onto the Pico W
10. Push the Display pack on top of the Pico Proto board
11. Connect the Servo to the 3 pin dupont cable
12. Connect the JST-PH power cable from the Pico Proto board to the device connector of the LiPo Amigo Pro

Electronics

Although this picture of the wiring looks a little complicated, its actually pretty straight forward:

• The VCC and GND from the device connector the LiPo Amigo Pro connects to the VBus and GND of the Pico
• The VCC and GND from the device connector the LiPo Amigo Pro connects to the Servos 5V and GND
• The Pico GPIO Pin 0 connects to the Servo signal pin
• The Display pack pushes on top of the Pico W with the Pico Proto board sandwiched inbetween
• The Pico Proto board VCC and GND connect to the JST-PH connector
• The JST-PH connector from the Pico Proto board connects to the LiPo Amigo Pro

MicroPython code

The files you need to copy to the pico can be found here: https://github.com/kevinmcaleer/ghostbusters_wifi. The files you need to upload to the Pico W are:

• arms.py
• background.jpg
• gui.py
• list.jpg
• scanning.jpg
• splash.jpg

User Interface

The user interface is made up of a couple of simple screens:

Use the Y and X buttons on the Pico Display Pack 2.0 to move the list selection up and down. Press the A button to reset the program.

STL files

You can download the STLs for 3d printing here:

• top.stl - Top Section
• back.stl - Back
• middle_section.stl - Middle Section
• back_layer.stl - Back Layer
• handle.stl - Handle
• left_arm.stl - Left Arm
• right_arm.stl - Right Arm

The arms are best printed in white PLA+, the rest of the parts can be printed in black PLA+.