A VOICE-ACTIVATED TALKING MASK

Check out the mask in action

Project Metadata

This project is a recreation of Tyler Glaiel’s talking mask first introduced around May 2020 on his Twitter. He also posted a tutorial of it on his Medium blog, which forms the base of this project. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this portfolio, Tyler has already removed his tutorial on Medium probably because of the now commercialized Jabbermask project. However, traces can still be found in this report, showing that he has published the tutorial in the beginning.

What it does

The talking mask is able to detect the voice input from the speaker and change the mouth shape accordingly. A smile can also be triggered by a quick pulse sound.

Hardware Requirements

1. An Arduino Nano board or any third party board with the chip ATmega 328

This is the brain of the whole device that controls the voice input and the LED lights.

2. MAX4466 microphone amplifier with adjustable gain

This detects the input of the speaker’s voice and turns the analog input into digital signals

3. A 9V battery that powers the whole device

4. An 8 x 8 LED matrix

The matrix is connected to the Arduino and both controlled and powered by it. It is responsible for showing the mouth shape

Software Requirements

The Arduino IDE, required to code the program and also load the program into the Arduino board.

Disclaimer

Because of the current unclear situation of its open-source nature. The hardware connections and codes will not be published.

Reflection

It was a great project to get me into the world of microcontroller coding and digital device building. From this project, I was able to familiarize myself with the whole digital device design workflow from designing, testing, and actually soldering everything together. Not only did it open up a new door for me, but the project is also doubtless an eye-catcher, as testified by countless people when I was wearing it and walking on the most crowded street in Stockholm.

Gold Decoy

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