Made With Mu: Student Made Stress Management Mask

Sean Tibor, a teacher based in Boca Raton, Florida, has been in touch about a cool project created by one of his students called Dilnaam D.

Sean is one of the co-hosts (along with his colleague Kelly Schuster-Pared) of the excellent Teaching Python podcast. I’ve been working through the available episodes and constantly find myself grinning like the Cheshire Cat as I’m reminded of my own experiences as a teacher (of music), and learn how this talented duo of pedagogical pros practice the art of teaching technology, and especially Python. I heartily recommend you take a listen.

Onto the intriguing student project…

Dilnaam’s project is a sort of interactive face mask, made with an Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, CircuitPython and Mu. The mask allows folks to become aware of and manage their stress levels (very useful for teachers!). Dilnaam explains:

This mask was made to demonstrate how a CircuitPlayground Express could be used to measure body temperature and indicate stress levels. My theory is that body temperature is an indicator of stressful feelings and that people can better control their stress when they have a visual indication of their own stress state.

In the picture below, we can see see Sean bravely acting as a test subject as (presumably) Dilnaam looks on while making adjustments to the code in Mu. A teacher acting as a test subject for their students shows a wonderful sense of trust. This is great to see! :-)

This scene reminds me of Wallace and Gromit, where the silent, loyal and infinitely patient Gromit aids the cheese obsessed Wallace in testing intriguing inventions made from advanced technology and household items cleverly put together in unexpected ways (usually with unfortunate repercussions for poor old Gromit). However, I notice the Circuit Playground Express board attached to the side of Sean’s head is glowing green, demonstrating the test was a success (well done Sean for being such a chilled out test subject).

Dilnaam’s code is beautifully simple and I love the helpful comments. I’m especially pleased Mu’s plotter feature is used to monitor the test subject’s temperature.

from adafruit_circutplayground.express import cpx
import time

while True:
    # get the temperature in F
    temp = cpx.temperature * 9 / 5 + 32
    print((temp,))  #Farenheight output for Mu plotting
    time.sleep(0.5)
    if temp > 91: # This is my initial theory for the stress levels and temperature
        cpx.pixels.fill((255,0,0))
    elif temp < 90:
        cpx.pixels.fill((0,255,0))

Finally, here’s Dilnaam’s hardware, in all its glory.

Dilnaam, those of us who make Mu would like to congratulate you on such a wonderfully simple yet intriguing project. Keep up the great work! We look forward to hearing about the amazing things you and your classmates invent in the future.

:-)

from Planet Python
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