Banana Phone (Video Included)

MS in Computational Design | Gadgets, Sensors and Activities
Carnegie Mellon University

Tags: Pysical Computing, Interaction Design, User Experience, Creative Coding

This project is inspired by one of the complaints in life. The bananas always go bad before I remember to eat them. So I think it is a fun idea to have the banana give me a call when it is time to eat it!

This is an alcohol gas sensor MQ3, which detects the amount of ethylene the banana gives out. Three different thresholds are set up. Each indicates whether the banana is not ready, ready or getting too ripe. Due to the lack of available off-shelf ethylene sensor in the market, I have to use this gas sensor as a replacement. The drawbacks are it is not sensitive and accurate enough. But it works perfectly for the proof of concept in my project.
When the sensor detects that the banana is ripe, the phone starts to ring.

Also, the banana phone works the other way around. You can call the Banana Hotline to check whether the banana is ready for eating or not. The number is “2255-226262”, which represents “CALL - BANANA”.

It is important to figure out the mechanism inside the rotary phone. Once it is figured out, it is not that hard to connect everything together.