Cover image for WeatherBot

WeatherBot

A cute robot that can show you the temperature


 12 October 2023   |     2 minute read   |   By Kevin McAleer   |   Share this article on

Page last updated November 22, 2024

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

assembly instructions

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

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

assembly instructions

The head piece should simply slot into the body section.

I also created a small sticker for the dial, and an eye sticker too:

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.



Code

View Code Repository on GitHub - https://www.github.com/kevinmcaleer/nodemcu_wifi

3D Models

Here are the 3D printable STL files: