Holographic Weathercaster

Overview

A fun pokemon-inspired hologram project that displays different Castform sprites depending on the current weather. 

Description

This project uses an illusion technique called Pepper's ghost, in which a sheet of reflective material (we used polycarbonate) is placed at a 45 degree angle and reflects light from a screen towards the viewer.

Features

• An LCD display driven by the SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) communication protocol

• The retrieval of live weather data using the ESP32's integrated WiFi, along with the ArduinoJson library to parse responses from the OpenWeatherMap API

• Emulating the Ricoh 2A03 on ESP32 to play 8-bit pokemon music

• Adjustable screen brightness through a potentiometer knob

• All packed inside a custom 3-D printed case! Credit to Alanda Nguyen in 3DMA

Reflection and Next Steps

• The screen is slightly off-center in the final product, minor pcb adjustment

• Exploring other neat ways to produce a hologram, like a mirascope or an ultrasonic volumetric display