About a year ago, I built a children’s music and light experience - an RFID-based jukebox for a friend who works closely with kids. The idea was simple: swipe a card, and it triggers a specific piece of music along with a synchronized light show. It was aimed at calming down hyper kids. It turned out to be a huge hit. The kids absolutely loved it. Below are photos of the actual installation in the Play school.The Smile acted as a timer btw.
Kindly Do watch Explainer video above first.
They wanted to try it as an experiment before they invested a huge sum of money in a proper commercial device. The experiment was successful, but they never managed to raise the money for the commercial device. Now, It worked well for around 6 months, but then the LED Stopped working. Over time, the device went through quite a bit of wear and tear. Buttons were pressed enthusiastically, cables were tugged, and parts that weren’t fully finished in the first iteration started to show their weaknesses. I left out a huge hole in the front. THey did use a tape to cover it. Kids will be kids
Here is a video during the actual development
After evaluating i decided the following changes
- Replace the long beefy power supply brick with more portable one.
- Fix the LED strip
- Clean up the wires inside
- Fix the loose speakers
- Put in the Arcade Switches
I can't believe that i used a uncovered power supply unit that had exposed Live 220V wires, Yes i told them to put this in an electrical junction box out of the reach of kids and that's what they did, but still i shouldn't have done this. You can see the power cable is nowhere visible in the installation but still it was very inconvenient.
How does this work
Inside, there is a Nucleo F103 board with a VS1053 shield and a SD Card adapter, connected to it by wires are an RFID Card reader, multiple panel mount switches, a 3W amplifier and 5W speaker. Yes, I know the speaker is overkill, But that's all i could access to in the time i had.
The Fix
Using Cable ties, i cleaned up the wires, 3D Printed an adapter to secure the speaker. Resoldered the LED strip wires and secured it with epoxy glue. This problem, I have to own it as it was due to a sloppy soldering job. So the epoxy glue will hold the cables securely. I also used some heat shrink tubes to secure the connection of wires to the panel mount switches. and replaced the power supply with a smaller wall adapter type.
Video Feedback
Do provide me with feedback regarding the presentation style. I used KDenlive for editing. A friend of mine gave me a nice opener and title which he created in Aftereffects.