The Problem
A Physical Problem Deserved a Physical Solution
Phone notifications for rain are easy to miss when you are rushing out the door. The goal was an ambient, physical alert — something that exists in your line of sight at the exit and cannot be swiped away.
Beyond the product idea, this was a deliberate exercise in the full mechatronics loop: external software data → microcontroller logic → physical actuation → custom mechanical enclosure.
System Architecture
How It Connects
Prototype Photos
Build Gallery
Engineering Decisions
Where Judgment Called the Shots
Physical vs. digital alert: A mechanical flag in your line of sight as you leave is harder to ignore than an LED or app notification.
Custom enclosure: Designed the housing in Fusion 360 specifically for the electronics layout — clean cable routing, correct port placement, and a form factor sized to sit near a door.
Polling interval: Balanced update frequency against power consumption and API rate limits by polling on a fixed timed interval rather than continuously.