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IOF - Internet of farts

A GPS and Wifi enabled car farting logging device. To the infinite stupidity and beyond! Keep reading...

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All mammals on this planet fart. As mammals, humans fart too. Especially when alone, in their cars when they commute to work.
So why not create a device to geolocalize those farts and log a few more things like the FartHeading, FartSpeed, etc?
Would it be interesting when selling the car, hand to the new owner a report of the number of farts released in the car and a map of those farts? Well not really but it was a fun project to build!

The device is quite simple: a microcontroller (PIC18F25K22), an ESP8266, a GPS module, a nice LCD and a keypad.

In normal operation, the display shows the speed, total fart count, heading, number of satellites used and HDOP. The last two are not very uselfull, it's just fun to see them.

Dashboard display

The case comes from a cheap solar light. The GPS module (GY NEO6MV2) is housed inside this case with it's antenna. I replaced the GPS's on board battery because it was dead. This battery help the receiver to recover from a power failure with either a Hotstart or a Warmstart (depending on the duration of VCC outage). The LCD is a monochrome one used in "reverse video" to minimize glare at night. It has a high contrast for a better visibility in full sunlight.

Operation

When a fart is released a simple press on the star key log the coordinates/speed/heading and then a simple survey is displayed. The star key is a good choice because the symbol itself looks like... you know... every mammal's "farts output port".

The survey is only 2 simple questions to get some "farting stats": what was I thinking at that moment? What was the fart size? The survey is optional: a quick fart log can be done with a simple press on the star key and then zero.

But the most interesting is the GPS fart heading and speed: do I usually fart turning my back to some places/country? Do I fart more at high speeds?

Unfortunately my device was not ready when I got my new car so the first "farting" month doesn't have any GPS and survey data. That's about 45 farts.

Uploading farts to the cloud

The data is manually uploaded to https://data.sparkfun.com/ every friday. I like this cloud service because you can do burst uploads. I like the idea of "burst" uploading my farts to the cloud...

Mainboard

The main board is a DirtyPCB I have designed as a universal IOT platform. It can handle an ESP8266 ESP-01 or a ESP-07 on a breakout board. The microcontroller is a PIC18F25K22 running PicBASIC code (more on this in the FAQ).

The circuit is powered by the car's infotainment system's USB port.

Mapping farts

The data is imported to a MSAccess database to do some computing and generate a TAB file. The TAB file is then mapped on Google Maps using GPS Visualiser. This service is great and I'll donate for sure!

  • Data analysis

    Michel11/14/2016 at 04:02 0 comments

    OK, I think I'm in big trouble. First let's look at some numbers. I do fart a lot in my car. At the time I'm writing this I own my car for 70 days and farted 219 times over a distance of 3067km.

    That's 1 fart every 14km, 3.13 farts a day! I do fart at an average speed of 39km/h and the maximum farting speed is 104km/h. That's good for me because the speed limit here is 100km/h.

    The problem is the heading: the average fart heading is 180.86 degrees. So in average I fart turning my back to the north pole: that could be the cause of polar ice caps melting faster. But worse than that: I fart turning my back to Santa Clauss... and I'm uploading those farts to the cloud... and he is flying in the sky on Christmas eve... I'm in big big big trouble!

    OK given the "cloud" is a metaphor, so do Santa flying is a metaphor too. Do those metaphor cancel each other and then Santa is going to really get my farts in the face on Christmas eve? Internet please help me on this!

    I do fart a lot close to my home, kid's school and daycare. Don't know what it means...



    Detailled stats

    Item Value Units / comments
    Days count 70
    Fart count 219
    Max farts in a day 15 Bad day at the office???
    Distance travelled 3067 km
    Avg fart distance 14.00 km
    Avg fart/day 3.13
    Max speed 104 km/h
    Avg speed 39 km/h
    Avg heading 180.86 degrees

  • FAQ

    Michel11/14/2016 at 03:52 0 comments

    Q: Why a PIC18F25K22 instead of XYZ?
    A: Yes, it can be all done on the ESP but I’m used to PICs and I have all the fun to design my own boards!

    Q: Why PicBASIC?
    A: I’ve learned C with TurboC 20 years ago. It’s been now 20 years I’m programming VBA and VB.NET. I’m just too lazy to go back, don’t have enough time to learn other languages and PicBASIC student version is free so…

    Q: Why don't you treat your "farting disease"?
    A: Farts are a normal "by-product" of the digestive system. Taking pills to "cancel" this "by-product" is not. I'm doing it when I'm alone. Who cares?

    Q: There's an app for that! What's the point of building this?
    A: It's about making things!

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Discussions

Starhawk wrote 11/22/2019 at 10:41 point

I have to say, catching wind of this project for the first time now, today, makes me feel kind of crappy... although, I also hope my rather cheeky sense of humor here is not entirely off-putting. I'd hate to cause a stink...

:P

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Sven Gregori wrote 06/28/2017 at 01:47 point

Since you're recording the size and speed of the farts, you could also record an approximation of "fart travel distance" and visualize some "fart cloud trail", assuming a certain size will last a certain amount of time. Of course, it will be quite inaccurate, unless you extend the system to log "dealt it", "smelt it", and "repelled it" (?) events to get exact timings.. hmm.

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Kevin wrote 06/27/2017 at 13:55 point

Since none of the roads you travel are north-south, and your average heading is so close to 180 degrees, I wonder if maybe you did not use the mean of circular quantities to determine your average heading.

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Undead.Manatee wrote 11/18/2016 at 02:57 point

Very nice.  And if you want someone else to experience it virtually, you can add one of these to your system: http://www.instructables.com/id/Internet-of-Toots-IoT-a-Social-Whoopee-Cushion/

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Michel wrote 11/23/2016 at 17:49 point

Great! Thanks for the idea ;)

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Gabriel wrote 11/16/2016 at 18:07 point

I laughed so much a the "Data Analysis" part... thanks.

+1 for the PIC.

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zakqwy wrote 11/15/2016 at 16:36 point

I've seen farts set off belt-mounted H2S sensors. Might be worth some experimentation. 

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Martin wrote 11/14/2016 at 07:58 point

It is too easy to cheat with this device. I had expected some automated snesing. At least accoustic or with a gas sensor. :-)

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Peter Noyes wrote 11/14/2016 at 20:48 point

SparkFun has a methane sensor: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9404

I wonder if it could pick up a fart??

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Michel wrote 11/15/2016 at 03:03 point

A gas sensor should work but I'll have to sit on it to get a good response time. But an acoustic sensor mode with a piezo element would do the trick... I'll give it a try ;)

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