DIY a Programmable Acrylic Monitor Stand

About: Hello, the author of the project is an Application Engineer of Seeed Studio. It's great to share this project with the Hackster maker community. I hope you like Seeed Studio, a hardware enabler for IoT applications, which provides services that enable IoT developers to quickly prototype... More information about Seeed Studio »

As a software engineer, I spend more than 12 hours in the front of computer. And I know there're more that 80% of software engineer have some problem with their cervical, include me.

So I think a monitor stand to higher the monitor is needed. And I was planning to make one myself.

Here share my latest project, a programmable acrylic monitor stand.

This monitor stand featured with:

• Arduino inside, you can add some sensors or actuators
• Made with acrylic
• Higher your monitor to protect your cervical
• Count the time that you sit in the front of the monitor
• Ultrasonic to detect if someone sit in the front of your monitor

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Step 1: What Do We Need

Electronic modules

• Arduino UNO or Seeeduino V4 as controller
• Grove - Base Shield to connect Grove modules
• Grove - Ultrasonic Ranger to detect if some guy sit before screen
• Grove - OLED to display the time
• Grove - Button as an input device, to reset the time.

Other:

• 8mm Acrylic
• M2 screw and nut

Copper Cylinder

• Copper Cylinder

Tools

• Screw driver
• Laser Cutter

If you can't find a laser cutter, you can make a wooden version or, try the Laser Cutter Service supply by Seeed.

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Step 2: Laser Cut the Acrylic

Download the file and laser cut it.

Here's we use 8mm acrylic, less that 8mm may broken if your screen is big.

Step 3: Desk Assembly

Fixed side acrylic panels with screws and angle iron.(Image 1)

Fixed the top acrylic panels with screws.(Image 2)

Fixed the drawer.(Image 3)

The desk is done (Image 4)

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Step 4: Hardware Connection

There're 3 modules need to connect to your Arduino.

• Grove - Button > D2
• Grove - OLED > I2C
• Grove - Ultrasonic Ranger > D7

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Step 5: Software Works and Test

The code was wrote in Arduino. If you hadn't try an Arduino, click to get more.

I had pushed my code to Github, if you like this project and want to improve it, please give me pull request.

Click here to download the code.

Please know that it's an Arduino Sketchbook, that include the demo code and libraries all needed.

1. When you get to the github page, find a Download ZIP button, click to download the code.

2 Unzip the file you had downloaded from github, you will get a folder namedArduinoPhone-master.

3. Open your Arduino IDE, click File > Preferences > Sketchbook Location, browse to the folder we had mentioned above - ArduinoDesk-master. Then click OK to save it.

4. Close and re-open Arduino IDE, click File > Sketchbook > demo, then the main code of the desk is open.

5. Choose the right board(Arduino UNO) and port to upload the code.

All the steps please refer to the image above.

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Step 6: Hardware Assembly

We need some M2 screws and nuts to fix the modules.

As shown at the above images.

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Step 7: Maker It Better

There're some awesome function to be added in the next version.

• Missed call
• Sedentary remind
• One button call - If someone can't find you, click on the button then a SMS will send to you, “COME BACK, SOME GUY IS WAITING YOU”
• If you have any ideas, please make a comment.

Have fun.