The folks over at One Mighty Roar recently built themselves the ultimate conference table for a new digital age. According to Jake Struzik of ‘Roar, the team wanted design a table that is cognizant of a participant’s presence, easily accessible over the web and capable of showcasing its lights and hydraulic lift on command.
As you can see in the series of pictures, the table, fashioned out of American walnut, is equipped with LED housing that runs through the center and around the bottom of the surface.
“The lights we chose were Adafruit’s WS2801 LEDs so we could easily slap on an Arduino and start programming away. The centerpiece is not just a placeholder for our logo, it serves a much greater purpose,” Struzik explained in a blog post.
“[Yes], a hydraulic engine lifts up the piece to expose a collection of outlets and Ethernet jacks for laptops and alike to receive some juice. A small switch at the bottom of the table controls the centerpiece vertically, so hopefully we’ll install some sensors to ensure a power cable (or a hand for that matter) will never get crushed in the process.”
Additional key components for the IoT conference table include an Atmel-powered Arduino Uno (ATmega328), Arduino Ethernet Shield, HCSR04 ultrasonic sensor, as well as various wiring and power supplies. On the software side, the One Mighty Roar team used Webduino, Adafruit WS2801 Library and HCSR04Ultrasonic.
“As a quick proof-of-concept, we had previously implemented a RESTful API for our office’s sign, using Webduino,” Struzik contiunued. “Once the ‘TableDuino’ API library was banged out, the setup was as simple as attaching the Arduino Ethernet shield and wiring the Ultrasonic sensor to the board. We gave the Arduino some power and an Ethernet hookup then started to fire away some API calls.”
Struzik also noted that the TableDuino is only the beginning of what One Mighty Roar wants to accomplish for its office devices.
“Down the road we want our API to control the table’s hydraulic motor, halt the engine if an object is detected before closing, and change LED color as more individuals sit at the table,” he added.
“These are only a few of the possibilities we could think of for the time being. We’re sure as more people play with our table (and possibly hack themselves) in the next few months, there will be more ideas than we’ll know what to do with.”
