This Pizza Compass Directs You to the Nearest Slice No Matter Where You Are

With the advent of GPS and the handy Google Maps, traditional compasses seem pretty outdated. They’re not as intuitive, and they only point north. But what if there was a smart compass that pointed you towards what you really want, like, say, pizza? Engineer Joe Grand recently built a compass that directs you to the nearest slice of pizza no matter where you are. And in the wise words of pizza connoisseurs, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it’s totally tubular.

The compass does what it says: it guides you to the nearest pizza place. But how does it work? The core of the compass is based on a Particle Boron module that’s a microcontroller and a cellular network interface in one. This not only controls the other peripherals in the compass and will allow the device to communicate with the Internet to point you in the right direction. The device is also equipped with a GPS module, an antenna, LED indicators, and a magnetometer or digital compass, which measure the magnetic field of the Earth and determines your direction.

For the software, the compass uses Particle-NeoPixel for LED control, lsm303-Arduino for e-Compass integration, and TinyGPS++ for GPS parsing and distance/course calculations. The device communicates with the Google Maps Place API via Webhooks. With the software installed, the board can get the coordinates of the closest pizza place using Google’s API and comparing it with your current GPS location.

When you’re ready for pizza, all you have to do is press a button and follow the green LED. But be warned, the compass doesn’t consider buildings or streets, so some proper navigation is still required. Since the pizza compass is open-sourced, you can build your own and have it direct you to your favorite foods, shops, or drinks.

If you want to make your own, check out Grand's step-by-step video and his schematics here.