While it’s fun to experiment with technology and DIY digital contraptions, sometimes they don’t have any useful purpose other than proving that you can do this and that. Experiments with Google, from the name itself, loves to experiment with different DIY stuff that anyone can easily follow. Their latest one is called Paper Signals and simply put, you are able to control tiny papercraft by using voice commands through Google Assistant. It’s cute, inexpensive, and actually something that can be useful to you.
To be able to do this experiment, you will need a Paper Signals starter kit which you can purchase at adafruit. It’s made up of an adafruit Feather Huzzah with headers, jumper wires, and a micro servo motor to move the paper objects. Then, of course, you need other tools like an X-acto knife, glue, pencil, and a ruler. Most importantly, you need a device that has support for Google Assistant, like Google Home or your smartphone that has GA. Then you just need to follow the detailed instructions like printing templates, plugging in wires, downloading the needed software, etc.
As soon as you’ve finished printing, installing, and connecting everything, you will be able to tell Google Assistant to “talk to paper signals”. Then you can ask it to track different things for you and the answers are in the paper craft you programmed. There are only six activities so far that are supported by the Paper Signals paper craft. You have an arrow that will tell you whether your Bitcoin is up or down or an umbrella that tells you whether you need one or not or one that can tell you whether you should wear pants or shorts.
You can buy the Paper Signals bundle from adafruit for just $25. Since this is opensource, they’ve also released the codes so you can make your own experiments if you know how to program things.
VIA: SlashGear
