To keep busy during quarantine, Harrison McIntyre built a fully automated M&M candy launcher that's activated using Amazon Alexa. It's a fun project that works great for satisfying your mid-afternoon snack cravings. Harrison made a very detailed and entertaining video documenting the project:
The M&M Launcher also provides a platform for practicing your robotics and earning your automation "chops". Along the way you'll need to pick up some interesting topics, including:
- Facial Detection
- Facial Landmark Detection
- Facial Recognition Library (and example code)
- Head Pose Estimation
- OpenCV Camera Calibration
- Raspberry Pi to Arduino Communication (Serial)
- Alexa Raspberry Pi Communication Library
- Hall Effect Encoder Code
You can find some of the 3d printed parts for building your own, and all the code on Github: https://github.com/hamac2003/M-M_Launcher