For my final IOT project I wanted to make something new, so I started brainstorming ideas by looking at the domains I have and how would I tie it to the tools I own. This semester ever since I started thesis, my domain has always been about Food Obsession and Human Cravings so I thought I’d be consistent and do another mini-project that relates to both domain.

Then one day I was cleaning up my locker and I saw my thermal printer just sitting on a wooden box from last year’s experiment, so I took it out and I made a pact with myself: “I have to make something out of this and relive its glory!”

So a day of googling brought me to this mesmerizing photo of the Japanese tradition:

Those Japanese paper prayers are also known as おみくじ o-mikuji , where people write their wish on paper and hang it at temples/shrines, but what if instead, you wish upon food?

FOODEVOTION is an interactive installation that captures the relationship between people and their inner craving. It asks the audience one simple question, “If you could have ANY food in the world right now, what would you wish for?”

It has a main web interface that takes user input through a simple textbox and a P5.js blank canvas. The images are saved into a folder that lives on the server and then the data is being sent from client to the server using UDP network. Finally, the server side sent the data to a Parse database and at the same print the requests real time. Below is the diagram of how it works:

Some documentation:

Sometimes it just prints out random stuffs

Adafruit Thermal Printer connected to laptop directly via FTDI Friend

Code is available on Github.