“This is a working display based on Star Trek TNG. Uses APIs and sensors for weather, VOCs, power measurement, calendar, fitness, and news.
Overview
I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’ve always wanted to build a Star Trek themed device, so I finally got around to remixing one of my old projects to make a Star Trek Display Terminal.
The terminal provides the following information:
Weather - using the National Weather Service
Indoor Temperature, Humidity and Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) strength
News Articles - from News.org
Schedule (with alarm function) - from Microsoft Outlook
Fitness Information (Steps, Move Minutes, Heart Points, Weight, Calories Burned) - from Google Fitness
a Resistor color code chart
an LED Resistor Calculator (to determine the resistor value based on current and source power)
Power and Current Measurement tool
This information is made available through a combination of APIs and hardware sensors. I leverage an ESP32 for the microcontroller, and leverage the AWS Cloud for all of the data collection and aggregation.
I also included a few “easter eggs”:
Ron McNair homage - Dr McNair is the reason I became an engineer; he grew up 45 mins from my hometown. He died in the Challenger explosion.
The name of my star ship is the “USS Ronald E McNair”
The Registry Number is from Sr McNair’s birth date; the Prefix Code is the day he lost his life.
The use of a “prefix code” is a nod to Star Trek: Wrath of Khan (the greatest Star Trek movie of all time; don’t @ me).
The numbers of the right of the terminal case refer to my fraternity (1906 - Alpha Phi Alpha) and my alma mater and field of study - (University of Oklahoma, College of Engineering)”