WeatherBot
A cute robot that can show you the temperature
Video
For every project I create, I often make a corresponding YouTube video. Sometimes, there might be more than one video for a single project. You can find these videos in this section.
Explore more through this this dedicated video.
Overview
I designed WeatherBot to be a fun robot that can show a tempareture reading in an innovate and unusual way; it uses a servo to point to a value on a dial, on its stomach. It even holds the temperature sensor in its hand, with the wires going to the back of the robot where the microcontroller is housed.
Works with Pico Too!
Though this project was orignally designed for use with an ESP8266, it works just as well with a Raspbery Pi Pico W.
Bill of Materials
Weatherbot is quite a simple robot and only needs a couple of parts:
| Item | Description | Qty | Unit Price | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temperature Sensors | DHT22 | 1 | £3.00 | £3.00 |
| Servo | SG90 | 1 | £4.00 | £4.00 |
| MicroController | ESP8266 or Raspberry Pi Pico W | 1 | £4.00 | £4.00 |
| Total | £11.00 |
3D Printable STL files
WeatherBot is made up of two main pieces:
Copy both the umqttsimple.py and weatherbot.py to the Pico or ESP8266 microcontroller using Thonny. You can configure weatherbot to send its readings to an MQTT server by adding a wifi usernane and password, and MQTT server to the varibles:
ssid = 'insert your SSID here'
password = 'your password'
mqtt_server = 'your MQTT IP'
Assembly
The head piece should simply slot into the body section.
I also created a small sticker for the dial, and an eye sticker too:
weatherbot_stickers.pdf- the eye and dial stickers
You can print out the stickers, cut them out with scissors and then glue them on the the 3d printed robot using a pva gluestick.
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