Vacuum ATM

TL;DR Video

Motivation (and a lack thereof)

Sometimes it can be hard to motivate yourself to clean. Sometimes it can be hard to motivate your spouse or kids to clean. If you or someone you live with is neurodivergent, chores such as vacuuming can be particularly difficult. Depression, anxiety, and ADHD (all of which are on the rise) can all reduce or otherwise affect someone's motivation.

In my house, this usually leads to an all-or-nothing cleaning approach with my partner and I. We start by picking up around the house which turns into wiping down the counters, vacuuming, mopping, and several hours later we are physically and emotionally exhausted from what was supposed to be a quick 15 minute pickup. This creates a negative feedback loop of cleaning too obsessively, pushing ourselves past our emotional limits, dreading future cleaning, procrastinating, and starting over at cleaning too much at once.

The Plan: Make it fun, make it quick, make it rewarding

Luckily, many of the strategies used to help neurodivergent people can be helpful for neurotypical people as well.

First I wanted to make vacuuming rewarding. I wanted to create a reward system since people with ADHD are more highly motivated by extrinsic rewards than intrinsic ones. So I figured I could set up a microcontroller to provide rewards to my wife and I.

Next, I wanted to make it quick and frequent. My wife and I have learned that using a timer while cleaning can be extremely helpful to keep our more obsessive tendencies in check. My Vacuum ATM can help by providing a reward after a quick 10 minutes of vacuuming, and remind us to vacuum by making a reward available every week or so.

Finally, I wanted to make it fun. After brainstorming with my wife for a while, she had the great idea to buy and modify a toy vending machine. ******************

A Series of Photons

The way that I set this system up uses 3 Photon 2 microcontrollers following the general logic below.

I opted for this method for a few reasons. First, I didn't want to disassemble my midterm smart plant which was using the dust sensor. Second, if I wanted the dispenser to detect if the vacuum was plugged in, it originally would need a wire running to a switch in the vacuum mount. I decided to dedicate a Photon 2 to sensing if the vacuum was plugged in or not so that the dispenser could go anywhere in my house.

The Toy Machine

I knew that dispensing rewards would be the hardest part about this project. The vending machine had its own dispensing mechanism I was counting on, but I still had to prevent it from giving out rewards all of the time.

My wife suggested I use 3D printed coins which I could push out like a Pez dispenser when the floors were vacuumed. I designed and printed one to test and it worked fairly well.

This solution was good but it still would allow anyone with 2 quarters to use the machine any time and I wanted to limit it to only after vacuuming. After brainstorming with my wife, we came up with the idea to block the bottom hole on the dispenser. This allows us to control when capsules are dispensed while retaining the fun of cranking the handle on the front.

Design & Fabrication

I modeled the toy dispenser in Fusion 360 and built my enclosure around that. I modeled mechanical parts to work with the existing machine and to be printed later. I cut the enclosure out on the CNC and glued it together. I cut white acrylic pieces to diffuse the LEDs and pressed them into the wood faceplate.

Input & Output

I wanted the whole vacuuming experience to feel very natural, so I avoided using any screens or direct button presses. To do this, I mounted one switch inside the vacuum mount to detect if it was present or absent. When the user tries to get a reward, they turn the crank. A 3D printed cam rotates on the shaft and presses a switch mounted on the plate. This allows the capsule door to open and close at precise times to dispense one reward.

Renders & PCB