January 1, 2020
IoT Development | August 2019 - December 2019
The programming hat is a motorized propeller hat triggered by Github contributions. As a team of three students, we built the hat to study the effect of positive reinforcement on Github contributions.
The hat's propeller was powered by a small DC motor. This motor was controlled by a LT239D integrated circuit which received signals from a Raspberry PI Zero W. The entire unit was powered by a 20700 li-ion battery and managed by a boost converter and charging module. The Raspberry Pi issued signals according to a Python script. The script created a web server for listening to post requests sent after a Git commit or push.
From our experiments, we found that commits increased by 500% while wearing the programming hat. We conclude the fun effect of the hat incentivizes users to make more Github contributions. The programming hat was voted best project by our classmates.