The FUnicorn

Description

Ever had one of those days where you have one special message for anyone bugging you? Well, we have the answer. Just touch the Unicorn.

The FUnicorn (we pronounce it "eff - unicorn") is an Arduino-compatible board designed both for laughs, and to teach a beginner a little bit about electronics and programming. 120 LEDs spell out the words "F@#! You" in glorious cursive, making it incognito for little ones because no one's teaching that shit in school anymore. The FUnicorn ships with a cardboard stand, an acrylic shield to hide the LEDs until lit, a USB cable, and capacitive touch code that cycles through 5 blinking patterns. Just touch the Unicorn to light up the message!

You can add on a Big Red Button, because who doesn't love mashing one of those? This enables the Unicorn to be battery-powered as it can sleep between button presses, while the capacitive touch code needs to be continuously powered.

Add more functions with an Arduino shield

Details

Now on Tindie!

The original prototype was a gag gift for a white elephant gift exchange. We loved it so much that we decided to revise it a few times, make it Arduino-compatible, and release our potty-mouthed unicorns out into the wild.

Base Kit:

FUnicorn Board
Cardboard stand
Smoked acrylic LED shield
Beautiful rainbow USB cable
Stickers

Full Kit:

All of the above
Big Red Button (60mm arcade)
Cable for button
Big Red Button Box
Sticker sheet with cutout templates and History Eraser decals
Screws and a grommet in case you want to 3D print our Big Red Button Enclosure
9V battery
9V battery cable
Arduino shield and ISP headers
FUnicorn magnet and more stickers

Software:

available through the Arduino IDE
on GitHub under Alpenglow Industries

What else can you do with it? Well, you can't change the message, those LEDs are all soldered in place. But you can change the blinking pattern to your heart's content. Make more patterns, make the sequence random, make a pattern trigger off a certain number of button presses or by holding the button down for a certain length of time. There's also a resistive touch "button" option if you short the unicorn's leg to its hoof, check out our GitHub repo for the demo code.

With the Arduino shield pattern on the back, you can also make it trigger off of just about anything imaginable.

add an ultrasonic distance sensor and make a Social Distance Unicorn that goes off if anything comes within 6 feet
add a Raspberry Pi and Google AI Voice kit and make it voice-activated. Because nothing is as satisfying as saying "Hey Google, F@#! You!"
add a microphone input so that ANY noise will set it off
add a motion sensor and put it in a window near your front door to tell off visitors
add a thermistor to let people know how much you hate working in an unairconditioned office in the summer

We want to see all of your FUnicorn hacks! Show us on instagram, and tag us @alpenglowind with #funicorn

Files

AlpInd-FUN-0001-Rev1.pdf

FUnicorn datasheet - instructions in a single file

Adobe Portable Document Format - 1.20 MB - 11/25/2020 at 23:19

Preview

FUnicornRevCPCBBOM.csv

FUnicorn Bill of Materials

ms-excel - 3.32 kB - 11/23/2020 at 19:35

Download

FUnicornRevCSchematic.pdf

The guts of the FUnicorn

Adobe Portable Document Format - 1.36 MB - 11/23/2020 at 19:14

Preview

FUnicornRevCAssembly.PDF

Zoomed view of PCB with bottom reference designators shown

Adobe Portable Document Format - 997.91 kB - 11/23/2020 at 19:14

Preview

Project Logs

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Voice-Activated FUnicorn with Google AIY Voice Kit & RPi

Alpenglow Industries • 03/10/2021 at 22:59 • 0 comments

That's riiiiight! Your favorite potty-mouthed horned pony can now be VOICE ACTIVATED! We've put together a python script that works with a Raspberry Pi and a Google AIY Voice Kit, and only needs you to hook up 2 jumper wires between the Pi and the FUnicorn. No soldering needed!

Here's our repo on Github, it's forked from the Google AIY Projects repo. NOTE! When cloning the repo, the first thing you should do is check out the <aiyprojects> branch! Google discontinued the default "master" branch at some point and it is old.

Hardware Setup:

Google AIY Voice Hat Servo 0 left pin (GPIO26) to Alpenglow FUnicorn button connector pin 3
Google AIY Voice Hat Servo 0 right pin (GND) to Alpenglow FUnicorn button connector pin 4

Changes and Additions:

cloudspeech.py was updated according to description in issue 716.
demo python scripts for the FUnicorn added to src/examples/voice

We wanted full functionality of the Google Assistant with the option to use the wake word. We also wanted the Google Assistant to control the Raspberry Pi output and use a custom phrase to activate the FUnicorn.

Examples:

funicorn_demo_wassistant.py has full Google Assistant functionality and is commanded via the wake word (OK Google or Hey Google), and outputs a "button press" to the FUnicorn when "fuck you" is uttered. It also says "No, Fuck You" in a most excellent obviously computer-generated voice. This would be a good script to modify and use with your own custom hardware.
funicorn_demo_alwayslistening.py is solely a cloud speech to text demo that is always listening and interpreting. There is no Google Assistant functionality.

Social Distance FUnicorn

Alpenglow Industries • 03/10/2021 at 22:22 • 0 comments

A while back we had a little bit of Socially Distant FUnicorn fun. We grabbed this $4 HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor from adafruit, added it to the FUnicorn, and made our own little warning for anyone getting within 6 ft.

If you'd like to make your own Social Distance Unicorn, example code is now part of the FUnicorn Arduino library on GitHub - it's also installable & updatable through the Arduino IDE. Instructions for adding libraries to Arduino are on this project's page under "instructions".

For distance sensor operation: Connect following wires from sensor to FUnicorn, GND to GND, ECHO to pin13, TRIG to pin12, VCC to 3.3V.

Here's a short video on how to hook up the distance sensor to the FUnicorn:

FUnicorn_Button Code

Alpenglow Industries • 07/13/2020 at 02:07 • 0 comments

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How it Works - the FUnicorn Schematic

Alpenglow Industries • 07/13/2020 at 02:06 • 0 comments

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Build Instructions

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1
SET UP THE UNICORN: The Base Kit
1. Unpack the components from the box. You'll have the FUnicorn board, 3 cardboard stand pieces, an LED shield, and a rainbow USB cable.
2. Slide the 3 cardboard pieces together to make the stand
3. Set the FUnicorn board on the stand
4. Peel the protective cover from the LED shield
5. Set the LED shield on the stand, over the LEDs
6. Plug in the USB cable to a charger or computer port
7. Wait for the unicorn's horn to pulse
8. Touch the unicorn!
2
SET UP THE UNICORN: The Full Kit:
1. Unpack the components from the box. You'll have everything above plus a Big Red Button Kit, a 9V battery and cable, and Arduino Shield and ISP headers.
2. Set up the FUnicorn as in the Base Kit instructions
3. Assemble the Big Red Button Kit per its instructions
4. Plug the Big Red Button into the FUnicorn board
5. Now you can activate the message by either touching the Unicorn or pressing the Big Red Button.
6. If you want to run the Unicorn off of battery power, unplug the USB cable and plug in the 9V battery (cable included).
3
(OPTIONAL) USING THE ARDUINO IDE TO REPROGRAM THE FUNICORN:
There are several steps to get the Arduino IDE downloaded and set up to work with your new FUnicorn board the first time. You won’t have to repeat them all every time!
1. Download the Arduino IDE software from www.arduino.cc and install it on your computer.
2. Open the Arduino IDE
3. Add the Alpenglow Industries Boards Manager url to Preferences:
  Go to File --> Preferences
  Add the following url to "Additional Board Manager URLs": https://alpenglowindustries.github.io/Arduino-Package-Index/package_alpenglow_index.json
  Click OK, OK to exit
4. Add Alpenglow Industries boards to Arduino
  Go to Tools 🡪 Board 🡪 Boards Manager
  (It does not matter what board is currently selected under Board: “BoardName”)
  Search for "alpenglow" in the search bar
  Click Install for Alpenglow AVR Boards
5. Add the FUnicorn library to Arduino
  Add through Library Manager
  This is the preferred method since you’ll automatically receive updates
  Go to Sketch 🡪 Include Library 🡪 Manage Libraries
  Type "alpenglow" into the search bar
  Install Alpenglow FUnicorn
  Add through Add .ZIP Library
  Go to https://github.com/AlpenglowInd/FUnicorn
  Click Code 🡪 Download ZIP
  Go to Sketch 🡪 Include Library 🡪 Add .ZIP Library.
  Select the .zip folder you just downloaded
  
  You’re done with the once-only steps!
  The following steps you’ll need to either do or confirm whenever you want to load new code on your FUnicorn.
6. Loading the Code:
  Plug in the FUnicorn to a USB port on your computer. USB drivers should automatically load if it’s the first time you’ve plugged it into that USB port.
  Go to File --> Examples
  Under "Examples from Custom Libraries" select Alpenglow FUnicorn
  Choose the example you'd like to load!
7. Code Examples:
  FUnicorn_ShipCode = the default code shipped with the unicorn, the message is activated via either capacitive touch or by pressing a button. Pressing and holding the button for the duration of a blinking cycle puts it into low-power button-only mode.
  FUnicorn_CapTouch = capactive touch only code.
  FUnicorn_Button = low power button-only mode, good for battery power.
  FUnicorn_ResTouch = sets up the leg and hoof as a resistive touch "button" if you touch them both together. Generally requires a moist finger. Maybe not the best for COVID times.
8. Send the code to the FUnicorn
  Go to Tools --> Board and under "Alpenglow AVR Boards" select "Alpenglow FUnicorn"
  Go to Tools --> Port and select the COM port number of your Alpenglow FUnicorn. Make sure the correct one is selected – you may have several on your computer!
  Click the "-->" button in the toolbar
  When a "Done Uploading" message appears, the code is loaded!
  COM port drivers can sometimes crash. If your COM port isn’t showing up, unplug the FUnicorn, restart Arduino, look at the list of COM ports under Tools 🡪 Port and write down the numbers. Click out of Tools 🡪 Port, then plug in the FUnicorn. Go back to Tools 🡪 Port, and the new FUnicorn COM port should be on the list. Select it. Click the 🡪 button on the toolbar again.
  Also note that your FUnicorn may show up as different COM port numbers when plugged into different USB ports on your computer.
9. If you’re new to Arduino, there are many tutorials on www.arduino.cc that take you through writing and modifying code, what Sketches are, what .ino files are, and what the setup() and loop() sections are, how to use libraries, and what basic C syntax looks like.