RPI News clock

Total time: 15 hours

July 5 - 1.5h

I was told to use an esp-32 instead of a rpi, so I made that change. It made a few complications in terms of audio and TTS, but I think I resolved them. I also changed all of my stuff from amazon to aliexpress (changing vendors again guhhh). New circuit diagram but with same name.

July 4 - 2h

I finally made a circuit diagram after a lot of work yesterday (mostly thanks to Yash). I moved the old files for the case to avoid confusion. They are now in old case files. I added all the formating required for submissions. I think I'm ready to submit!

July 3 - 3h

I didnt realize the deadline was coming up so closely, so I've made quite a few changes to account for that. For one, I descoped the project quite a bit. I'm planning on using a bluetooth speaker, and I'm going to be using hot glue instead of worrying about press fits. I also had to find parts from amazon so they would arrive in time instead of aliexpress. I had to change the case design a bit because of this (which was very annoying to do because I had caded everything form the og screen file). New files are called newcasebottom.stl and newcasetop.stl . Deepseek and I wrote some better code, which now includes a simulated version for non rpi hardware. I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make a wiring diagram without success.

July 1 - 3.5h

I worked on trying to optimize the BOM, since I am currently above the $50 budget, but I think I can get it within. Originally, I bought a few things from adafruit. They had a shipping cost of six dollars, but I was able to find similarly priced items with free shipping (Vilros for rpi, aliexpress for small components). I also originally wanted to use a waveshare screen, even though I knew it would be expensive. The shipping was absurd though (\$15), and I would be paying half of my budget just to the screen. I was able to find another screen on aliexpress that did have good drawings, so I will remodel around that. Using the aliexpress screen will probably free up twenty dollars, so I will hopefully have room for a power supply, screw kit, and resistor kit. I also got chatgpt to write some code for it - its in main.py.

June 30 - 3h

Finished the case! My onshape rendering was bugging a bit so the colors might look a bit funny. Here's the final image: One thing you cant see is how I mounted the screen. I have it bolt in to a bracket that is fixed to the bottom case with a press-fit peg. I wasn't really sure how to mount the buttons. I decided on just letting the button part of the buttons to slightly portrude, which requires a small cavity in the case for the rectangular part. The cavity will be filled with hot glue to fasten the buttons.

June 25 - 3.5h

Worked on the case + did some research on components. I figured out I should use an rpi zero and a waveshare display(https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/lcd-oled/lcd-oled-3/1.9inch-lcd-module.htm). Here's a picture of my whole case so far: I was trying to figure out how I would service the thing and work on it. I decided on making the bottom part removable, so I can slide it in and out. Here's the mechanism to do that: