Process

1. Interview user and identify need

- Interviewed my sister, Cass, and identified that her contact lens case could be a good candidate for an IoT hack

2. Identify necessary components for project 

- I decided to use a Hall Effect Sensor to sense/monitor when the contact lens case has been opened and closed. To test this out, I needed: Hall Effect Sensor (1), magnet (1), LED (1), resistors (10K & 1K), jumper wires, as well as my Argon. 

3. First attempt 

- My first goal was to set up the circuit and successfully use the hall effect sensor and light up an LED to show that the magnet was detected by the sensor

- I learned that the Hall Effect Sensor needs 3.5V (while the Argon provides 3.3V), so we reconnected the power to USB. 

- After setting up the circuit, I found some starter code for the Hall Effect Sensor, which turned out to be not that useful; it had to be slightly edited for my sensor to successfully work (thank you TAs!) 

- Also had to program the blue LED to turn on after 6 hours (Please note that for demo purposes, the code was altered to 6 seconds, where 6 seconds represents 6 hours = contacts are cleaned)

4. Adding More Functionality

- Following this, I added an additional LED (yellow) to alert users when 26 days has passed and that this pair of contact lens needs to be thrown out and replaced (Please note that for demo purposed, the code was altered to 26 seconds, where 26 seconds represent 26 days = contacts need to be replaced)

- I also added a button to turn off the blue LED (after 6 hours, when the user puts on their clean contacts)

5. Adding the sensor to the object

- The Hall Effect Sensor needs to meet the north side of the magnet perpendicularly, so I had to experiment with the placement and securement of the sensor and the magnet. 

- I soldered the sensor to 3 jumper wires and covered them with electrical tape

- After testing that the sensor still worked, I attached the sensor to the contact case and attached the magnet on the right lid.