Helping people overcome long distances, TweetChime is a melodic chime that communicates people’s sentiments and transmits them into melody. So, no matter where you are, you can let your loved ones know you’re thinking of them and they can hear your sentiment in real-time in sound. By using Twitter, you can send your preferred sentiment, anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
In this case, in the video above, my brother, Pat has sent me this coded message: “@tweetchime [dinnertime] awww yeah!” Why? Because he has an odd sense of humor from living in Mobile, Al. which somehow is lost on me in New York City. Ah, family.
Who Could Use TweetChime?
TweetChime is great for ambient contact technology. In other words, you can keep yourself open to others without them having to actively message you (through phone/IM/email). Vice versa, they can quickly tweet you and have the satisfaction of knowing that you will hear their tweet melody in real time on your side. The TweetChime is unobtrusive and (if prototyped further) can blend into your household.
Long distance friends/family
Parents who want to communicate with their kids (who can’t read time, distinguish technology)
Visually Impaired
Interact with TweetChime:
Would you like to send a sentiment to me? Please tweet to @tweetchime, the TweetChime’s Twitter account.
How to Send: TweetChime recognizes the coded message within the brackets [ ]. The TweetChime website will scan Twitter’s search results looking for messages aimed at @tweetchime.
I have programmed a reply that TweetChime can recognize from a Twitter message. Choose your choice below:
@tweetchime [be happy]
@tweetchime [congratulations]
@tweetchime [missing you]
@tweetchime [holla]
@tweetchime [coming home]
@tweetchime [dinner time]
ex: cwong08 says: “@tweetchime [dinner time] Mom is serving mashed potatoes and turkey! Mmmm!
Where Does My Tweet Go?
TweetChime will be searching for all mentions of itself (@tweetchime) through Twitter’s public search time line. When it finds the coded tweet (1 of the 6 above), it’ll understand it and output into a short melody that the TweetChime owner will understand.
I managed to make it work! Here’s it in action: Five Servomotors using the servo library within Arduino to function within sequence with room for a delay so each servomotor can complete their action before proceeding to the next action.
New things I learned:
1) Servo library can be used on non-PWM slots on the Arduino. You are not limited by slots 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11.
2) Heat shields are a must-have on a voltage regulator where you plan to have your device on for anything above 5 minutes (IMHO)
For my Final Project, I decided to combine my ICMW and PComp classes together and produce a single idea: Meet TweetChime. TweetChime is an interactive music chime that that will take specially coded Twitter messages people send to you and transforms them into melody where you are. What makes that so special?
Whether a friend wants to express “Good Luck!”, “Congratulations!”, “Have a Great Day” or “Thinking Of You”, TweetChime transforms their greeting in a harmonious patterned musical chime melody in real time. Be pleasantly surprised when you hear the ringing of notes and know that someone – out there– is thinking of you. As an owner, you can decipher what people are messaging you based on the musical melody overheard.
Interaction: Person tweets a message through a special code setup. Example: @cwong08 says, “@tweetchime 65 #tweetchime.
Among the selected messages are examples like “Have a Good Day!” “Miss You,” “Good Luck!”, “I Love You,” that are given specific number codes etc. Currently, numbers 65-68 are coded. The owner of the TweetChime machine will log on to the TweetChime website and activate their device. From there, the TweetChime website scans an RSS feed for impending tweets for @tweetchime and refreshes your website with appropriate melody when triggered by friends and family’s tweets.
Under the Hood: TweetChime is powered by Javascript, PHP, and an Arduino. The TweetChime website is built with Javascript to interact serially with the Arduino (via USB port). TweetChime website uses AJAX to scoop data from a PHP script that reads a Twitter RSS feed and parses numerical codes from people’s submitted tweets. From there, it passes those byte values to the Arduino which then outputs it into the message’s cued melody.
Setup: Arduino, PHP, Javascript, 5 wind chime tubes, servo motors, 5 mini metal tubes (strikers)
Each wind chime is paired with a servo motor that is wired to the Arduino. When the Arduino checks for digital read messages, it will receive the values and trigger the servo motor to tap the chime in series. A message like “Have a Good Day!” would sound differently then a message like “Miss You.”
Here’s a video of me testing the sensor motors against the wind chimes I purchased to see if they’d resonate.
