About

So you have a situation that always comes up at the end of your conversations:

• Let's connect?

• What do you do?

• Can you unlock my computer in one tap?

Well, maybe you don't get the last one as much. But if you happen to, I'll show you exactly how to create a ring that can instantly solve all three problems with one tap of your ring.

What is NFC?

NFC stands for Near field communication. It's a form of RFID and the way it works is pretty cool. It never needs to be charged, because whenever it comes in contact with a reader, its able to power it just long enough to send whatever information is stored on it.

There are so many different types of tags, and smallest ones I could find are these chips by Adafruit, which are the perfect form factor for rings.

Micro RFID by Adafruit

They also sell this button nfc, and I'm still trying to find a good use case for it because I just want one.

Making an NFC rings

1. Download project files

Download the CAD files here:

[Coming Soon]

2. Print the enclosure

Included are the inner and outer part of the enclosure. Print both.

3. Embedd the NFC chip

There is a guide line to help line up the ring properly. Place the chip in the slot on the outer ring, then slide in the inner ring.

The black circle on the chip should be facing up. The ring should click into place.

4. You are now part Cyborg

Not really but you now have a pretty cool way to share your links, and so much more (coming soon)

Don't want to do all this, but want a sick ring? Get one here:

Code SUBSTACK for 10% off

I made these Lynk rings that tap to open up my portfolio, so I can connect with people on the go, without having to bring out my phone. They also serve as a key to unlock some of my projects, including:

• Starting up my computer;

• Authentication for my cyberdeck;

• Locking and unlocking my door (tutorial for that coming soon!)

You can try one out here:

Code SUBSTACK for 10% off

I’ll be making tutorials on all the cool projects we can make with this thing and for now, we’ll be going through how to setup your ring out of the box, to open any link on the web. This tutorial applies to any writeable NFC tag you want to use.

Step 1: Download NFC Tools App

Don’t worry, you can delete it right after. I do find it useful for updating my links whenever I’m doing something new.

Step 2: Go to the Write tab

Click on the WRITE tab at the top of the app.

Step 3: Select the type of record to store

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the Custom URL/URI. I’ll select it, then add in my URL.

Step 4: Write onto Ring

Click ‘Write / x Bytes’. This should open a prompt to tap your ring. Simply tap the ring at the back of your phone where the NFC reader is, till you get a confirmation that the reading was successful.

There you have it! Now, every time you tap on the ring, it will open up your link! Next time, I’ll be showing you how to unlock your computer in 1 tap using the same ring, with no further configuration needed. (I told you you could delete the app)

Install Dependencies

1. Install VS Code

Download and install Visual Studio Code from the official site.

Install VS Code

2. Install Python

PlatformIO needs Python available on your system.

Download and install Python from the official site.

Install Python

3. Open VS Code

Launch VS Code after installing it.

4. Install the PlatformIO IDE Extension

In VS Code:

• Click the Extensions icon on the left sidebar

• Search for platformio

• Click Install

Install PlatformIO

5. Restart VS Code

Once installation finishes, it will prompt you to refresh the window. If it doesn’t, close the application, then reopen it.

Using in a Project

1. Download the GitHub Files

Open the required GitHub repository, like this one:

Try with this

Click Code, then Download ZIP.

Once the files have downloaded, Extract them.

2. Open in PlatformIO

Open a new VS Code window. Click of PlatformIO’s icon in the extension panel. It looks like an alien.

Then click on Pick a folder. Select the extracted folder you downloaded. Make sure to select the folder with the platformio.ini file. Or if you want to start from scratch, Click Create New Project. A full tutorial for that can be found here.

Your file tree should look something like this:

3. Upload and Run

You may have noticed a new set of icons at the bottom of the window.

• House - PlatformIO home page

• Tick - Build main.cpp

• Arrow - Upload main.cpp to board

• Bin - Clean build

• Flask - Test build

• Plug - Open Serial Monitor

• Terminal - Open terminal

• Plug w/ Auto - Set port

Now you can plug in your board, set the COM port and start tinkering! Try out these Hand Tracking Gloves first! For more help, check out PlatformIO’s documentation.

Please note that the information in this post is subject to updates to improve correctness and readability. Any issues or improvements? Send me an email at sheyitawn@gmail.com!

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About

[COMING SOON]

BOM

Prepare flex sensors

Grab the other glove you haven’t used yet (or any stretchy fabric) and cut out the fingers into strips, as long as they go. Keep these aside.

Then put the flex sensor about halfway on a piece of duct tape so there is a good amount of excess. Insert one of the flex sensors into a finger strip.

Sew the fingertip of it through the duct tape to keep it in place

Sew around the flex sensor, ensuring it is not too tight as to not bend it. Cut off any excess.

Pull back the cloth and solder some wire to the ends of the flex sensor, then heat shrink them.

—

NOTE

This bend sensors pins are bad, so I had to secure with hot glue. Probably better to use a different kind, these are what I had. Maybe they would be changed in the future.

—

You can now pull the cloth back down if possible. Repeat for the remaining sensors.

Attach to Hall Effect Glove

Wiring

Solder to MCU

Upload Firmware

All the code and files can be found here:

Project Files

You are free to use any IDE. I have used PlatformIO for this project. Here is my guide to setting up PlatformIO and downloading the files.

You will need to change the COM port in the plot.py. You c

My name is Seyitan. You probably know me as sheyitawn.

I started posting on social media to get more people to know about NODE and Flo.

NODE

But a lot of people seemed to be more interested in my other projects, and how to make them as well. Which is a bit intimidating since I don’t really know what I’m doing.

So this is my attempt to do just that. I’ll be posting tutorials of completed projects, as well as tools that help my workflow, and other miscellaneous stuff. If you’re not really interested in all this nerdy stuff, you can check out my portfolio, which I’m currently in the process of de-nerdifying and dumping here.

I’ll also post my progress on ongoing projects to paid subscribers, and when I’m sure that a project won’t immediately blow up upon turning on, I’ll post it for everyone.

Subscribe now

Please send me an email for suggestions, ideas, questions about builds! [sheyitawn@gmail.com] Or just comment under these posts :)

I also stream building random stuff so if you’re interested in that kind of jazz, you can check out my schedule that I almost certainly do not keep to:

stream schedule

Please consider subscribing to be notified when I post new projects and to support my work!

About

I created these to collect data for my sEMG wristband. This will be used in the machine learning process as ground truth for the band. It can also be used to control a Hiwonder uHand, and I will be posting a tutorial for that next.

My Portfolio

BOM

Install the hall effect sensors

Insert them at the MCP (Metacarpophalangeal) joint of the front of the glove. I recommend you put it on to see if they are in the right position.

The hall effect sensors should be facing up, with their backs on the palm.

Gently flip the glove inside-out. You want to add wires on the ends of the sensor pins.

The hall effect sensor has 3 pins: VCC , GND and Analog Output. Solder wires to each of the VCC and GND and repeat for all 5 fingers.

I like to colour code them to make sure I don’t mess it up later (red for VCC, black for GND). We will do the Analog Out pin later. Wrap your wire around each pin, then solder it in place. Finally, add a heat shrink and ensure there is no exposed wire. Its really easy to get a short with so little space to work with, so be careful here.

Make the wire relatively long so you have excess. Then heat shrink the wire, ensuring there are no exposed metal contacts.

Since the VCC and GND are all going to the same place, it’ll save a lot of space if they’re connected before they get to the board. Cut all the GND wires but one till they reach about the centre of the palm. The extra one will go to the board. I left the thumb uncut. Strip the cut wires and twist them together. Expose a bit of wire on the uncut wire and wrap the cut wires around it. Now all the wires should be connected to one single wire we will connect to the board. Solder and heat shrink to keep them stable.

I recommend trying on the glove at every point to ensure it fits comfortably and the wires aren’t too tight/ don’t affect movement. Repeat the same for VCC. You should now have 2 wires coming out of the glove.

Wire up the output pins

Repeat the same thing for the input pins, but do not connect them together. We need those separate to collect their individual values, and we’ll feed this into our esp32-s3. You should now have 7 wires coming out of the glove.

Wiring

Solder the GND and VCC to a very small PCB. We will expose our VCC and GND to this board to allow us to connect more components later. If you don’t plan on adding on the flex sensors, you can wire them straight onto the PCB.

Connect that to the ESP-32. The VCC should go to 3V of the ESP-32 and the GND to GND.

Connect the Output pins:

Pinkie - A0

Ring - A1

Middle - A2

Index - A3

Thumb - D6

I hot glued the bottom of the heat shrinks to keep them in place (since the fingers will be moving a lot).

If you’re brave, solder everything to the board directly. I would however recommend testing with a breadboard to ensure your wiring is correct. To do this, wire everything up the same way, but through a breadboard. Then upload the code (shown in The Code section). You should see values being printed in the serial monitor every few milliseconds. If you place a magnet near the sensors, the numbers should go up or down.

Clean up glove

I plan on putting the electronics in the band of my glove, and you should do whatever works the best for yours. I simply hot-glued a piece of cloth over the wires to reduce the stress from wearing the glove on them.

I hot glued the board onto the band of the glove, so that the USB-C port is sticking out.

Add the magnets

I placed magnets around the DIP (Distal Interphalangeal) and PIP (Proximal Interphalangeal) joints, depending on the finger.

I initially used just duct tape to hold them in place, and I recommend wiring the glove to a microcontroller and run plot.py (included in The Code section) to see what points give the best readings on your glove. When you run the code and look at the plotted graph, you should see a clear increase and decrease in the value of the sensor.

Once you are sure about the magnet positioning, you can hot glue them in place.

The Code

All the code and files can be found here:

Project Files

You are free to use any IDE. I have used PlatformIO for this project. Here is my guide to setting up PlatformIO and downloading the files.

You will need to change the COM port in the plot.py. You can see this by checking the bottom of your editor, with the PlatformIO settings.

DEFAULT_PORT = "COM17"      # change if needed

Upload main.cpp onto your ESP32-S3. Then run plot.py in an new terminal with:

python plot.py

A new plot should open up and you should see a stream of 4 analog values, and 1 digital. If you do not see much movement, you may have to:

• adjust the position of your magnets.

• change the ANALOG_MIN and ANALOG_MAX: tweak these values to zoom in and out of the graph.

Once you are able to see a reasonable change in each of the fingers, then your magnets are placed correctly.

Now you can try out the hand_visualiser.py. Remember to change the COM port. Run it with:

python hand_visualiser.py

Once you have this running, press C to calibrate. It will prompt you to open your hand, then close it. This stores your calibration data to glove_calibration.json. You should be able to see a pretty cool visualisation of your finger positions!

Please note that the information in this post is subject to updates to improve correctness and readability. Any issues or improvements? Send me an email at sheyitawn@gmail.com!