A Blend of Physical and Digital

Just within the past few weeks, Google unveiled a fun little project called Paper Signals. Paper Signals is part of their larger WithGoogle series of experiments. This one is a fun little DIY experiment focused on speech recognition. Note: You may be familiar with their Google Arts & Culture experiment that blew up a few weeks ago on social media that matches your face to the subject of paintings.

Paper Signals consists of a few small, inexpensive parts that piece together to form a voice-controlled, motorized paper structure. Google shares a few pre-made signals as printable templates that can do a variety of things, such as:

• Tell you whether it is shorts or pants weather

• Count down to an important date

• Track upcoming rocket launches

These, and many more DIY signals, can be easily built and tied to simple voice commands controlled by Google’s Assistant voice AI (their version of Siri or Alexa). If you are interested in building one of Google’s ready-made signals, or want to try your hand at making your own, here’s everything you need:

• Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with Headers ($19.95)
• Micro Servo Motor (only one needed, but this is a 2-pack; $6.99)
• Jumper Wires [Female to Male] (40-pack; $3.95)
• MicroUSB to USB Cable [for power] ($4.99, cheaper multi-packs available)
• Lithium Ion Polymer Battery (aka Lipoly)- 350 mAh ($6.95) [Power alternative; Varying mAh available]

Depending on availability, you may also be able to get these in a pre-bundled pack.

Sound like a fun evening or weekend project to you? Get tinkering!