“Charity Sower is an unique platform that not only enables you to donate coins, but also allows you to track the location of each donation.
Overview
Charity is a vital aspect of building a compassionate and empathetic society. It involves voluntarily giving time, resources, or assistance to those in need without expecting anything in return. Charitable acts not only help the recipients but also provide a sense of purpose and fulfilment to the givers. Charity can help alleviate poverty, provide healthcare, education, and other basic necessities of life. It can also promote social cohesion and bring people together to work towards a common goal. Ultimately, charity serves as a reminder of our shared humanity and the importance of supporting each other, especially during difficult times.
Based on the following part of Jewish morning prayer:
To the Blessed God they sing; to the living King they utter hymns and praises. For God alone performs mighty deeds, making new things, sowing righteousness, causing deliverance to sprout forth, creating healing. Awesome in praise, Master of wonders, God, in His goodness, renews Creation day after day. So sang the Psalmist: “Praise the Creator of great lights, for God’s kindness is everlasting”.
The reason for using the word ‘sowing’ in the context of the mitzvot of charity is because when a seed is planted in the ground, a plant grows that is greater in quantity and quality than the seed itself. This growth is achieved through the process of sowing, where the seed rots and is absorbed by the soil. By planting the seed in the soil, it activates the vegetative power of the soil, resulting in abundant growth. Similarly, charity works in the same way - by giving to others, we can create positive growth and change that far exceeds the initial donation.
And also by Yeshayahu (Isaiah) - Chapter 59, verse 19
And He donned righteousness like a coat of mail (shield), and a helmet of salvation is upon His head, and He donned garments of vengeance as His attire, and He was clad with zeal as a cloak.
I was inspired by the above sources to build a charity box that incorporates a GPS component and a distance sensor to track the act of giving and display it on a world map. At the end of each cycle, a set of coins is deposited into a separate compartment, and the money is later transferred to a charity through PayBox. This physical process of “sowing charity” in different locations is a powerful educational tool that helps to internalise the importance of giving as part of the mitzvah.
Project description
The design of the charity box is built around the Seeed company’s integrated system called Wio Terminal, which provides various components, including two Grove sockets for connecting peripheral devices from Seeed or I2C-based devices from other companies like Adafruit.
Excellent guide on the platform:
https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/Wio-Terminal-Getting-Started
In this project, I utilized two peripheral components: the GPS Air 530 to locate the place of donation and the VCNL4040 distance sensor for detecting coin insertion into the cash register.
The project also includes 3D design and printing of the charity fund’s body, which features a compartment for undonated coins and an additional compartment for donated coins. A beep sound is played when donating coins equal to the amount in the compartment for undonated coins, indicating that the total amount should be donated to the charitable institution via Paybox or other means.
The flowchart below illustrates the two activation options, with and without Wifi connection. Pressing the joystick in front of the screen while turning on the computer establishes a connection to the WiFi network. An internet connection is required only when transmitting all the collected coordinates to the Wappsto cloud service, which visually displays where the money was donated. To transmit all the collected coordinates to Wappsto, press the B button in WiFi mode.
Component list
- Seeed Wio Terminal Main controller
- Seeed GPS Module Air 530
- Adafruit VCNL4040 distance sensor
- USB Type A-TypeC cable with angled connector for the power bank”