Did you know that on hot summer days like these, you need to drink at least 8 large glasses of water?! Thankfully, you don’t need to keep count by yourself… Let the Micro:Bit hydrate buddy help you out!

This little DIY buddy will beep 8 times from the moment you turn it on, with an interval of 1 hour to remind you when to drink another large glass of water. You can confirm that you drank a glass by pressing button B and you can add more to the count by pressing button A (if you’re really thirsty). The LEDs on the Micro:Bit will keep count and the BrightDots on top of the buddy will glow green when you’re being a good boy or girl.

Most importantly, the hydrate buddy is wireless thanks to the power:bit shield. As a result, you can take it wherever you want to go! Let’s start making your personal buddy!

Ingredients

 

 

Tools

  • USB a to micro b cable
  • stripping pliers
  • soldering iron
  • solder
  • shrink tubes
  • a heat gun or hair dryer
  • box cutter
  • ruler

1. Programming the Micro:Bit

Not familiar with programming a Micro:Bit yet? Then check out their quick guide page on https://microbit.org/guide/quick/ and learn how to program your microcontroller.

We made an example code that has the following features:
– The buddy will beep every hour to remind you to drink a glass of water.
– Confirm that you drank a glass of water by pressing button B.
– You can add a glass count by pressing button A.
– The BrightDots on top of the hydrate button show whether or not you’re doing a good job! Red is negative and green is positive.

Download the code here and upload it to your Micro:Bit!

2. Prepping the connection

Check out the electrical connection scheme below and use it while soldering the connections. Do not solder it yet! We will explain the soldering process in the steps below.

Heads up, you will need to solder the wires on the pins of the battery shield. Be sure to place some protective shrinking tubes over the connections before you solder them together.

4. Making the cardboard shell

Step 1: first of all, download the template for the cardboard case here and print it out. Then cut it out (full lines are for Cutting, Dotted lines for bending).


Step 2: trace the template onto your cardboard
Step 3: cut out the template.

Step 4: paint the cardboard if you want to.

5. Solder steps

Step1: solder the BrighDot to the Power:Bit shield (check out the scheme above) by using the soft wires. Make sure that the wires are long enough, but not too long.

Step 2: Bend the cardboard, following the dotted lines of the template until you have a neat case.

Step 3:  connect the Micro:Bit with Power:Bit shield. Then guide the BrightDot trough the top hole.

Step 4: make holes where the bolts need to be mounted, you need to do this in order to keep your Micro:Bit assembly in place.

Step 5: then screw the bolts in place.

Step 6: glue the BrightDots on top of the case.

Step 7: finally, close the box and glue it together. Done!