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GPS Pothole Button, Raspberry Pi PICO and FRAM

Yes, I know you can get AI based pothole detection for your phone, but what fun is that? Respect your distracted driving laws...

sciencedude1990sciencedude1990
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Potholes are a pain! When you see one, press the big red button, and the current GPS location is logged in a FRAM, and the buzzer buzzes back! Always remember to respect your distracted driving laws, so maybe get a co-pilot to help?

I was a little frustrated with the potholes after the winter, so I built this.

When you see a pothole, you press the big red video game button.  If the GPS is locked and the data isn't "stale", then it records it in the FRAM. 

When you get home, you can open the text file, and send to your city representative to have the potholes fixed.

The FRAM was a slight diversion - I wanted to see how to work with the FRAM chip and the raspberry pi pico, and I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to format, mount, and use!

My GPS module is a custom PCB for the ublox, but you could use whatever module you like.

  • 1 × Raspberry PI Pico W
  • 1 × Adafruit 3489 Red Push Button
  • 1 × PUI AI-3035-TWT-3V-R Buzzer
  • 1 × ublox SAM-M8Q-0-10
  • 1 × Adafruit 1895 FRAM breakout

  • 1
    Hardware

    Connect the FRAM and your GPS module to the raspberry PI pico.  Debug!

    Connect the big red button and the buzzer.

    I connected the red button to GP0 and GND.  I connected the red LED part to GP1 and GND (in the code, the button is lit up, but turns off when you press it!).

    The buzzer is connected across GP2 and GND (pay attention to the polarity of the buzzer).

    The FRAM is connected to I2C0 on GP17 and GP16.

    The GPS is connected to UART0 on GP12 and GP13.

  • 2
    Coding

    Please see github...

    Github location

  • 3
    Using the FRAM

    This FRAM module is nice because it has very high endurance for log files.

    As an introduction, I included mount_FRAM.py as an example to the github page.

    When you first use the FRAM, run the "mount_FRAM.py" program, but uncomment the line

    os.VfsFat.mkfs(fram)

    This will create the FAT filesystem on the FRAM.

    Once the script is done, then in Thonny, you can browse to the new "FRAM" folder (make sure you go to View->Files menu to make sure you can see the files on the rasperry pi pico).

    You might need to click the hamburger button, and "refresh".

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chris_debian wrote 07/07/2023 at 21:23 • point

I think the pothole issue is a good one to concentrate on.

I'm a contributor to OpenStreetMap, and would like to take this a step further, and have an open source app that senses the road surface quality, using smartphone sensors, then uploads it to OSM, so that road quality is continually updated.

Similar work has been done here: https://github.com/SmartRoadSense

I've written a diary entry, here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/chris_debian/diary/401287

Thanks for sharing; good work.

Chris

  Are you sure? yes | no

Thomas wrote 07/07/2023 at 18:11 • point

Back in college, I actually worked on a web app that was designed to allow people to view and submit locations of potholes. There was the question of how to automate detection and submission of pothole locations. Unfortunately, that was a bit beyond the scope of our project.

Your solution to the problem is nice and simple, which I like. I might just build one of these things. The potholes in my area drive me nuts!

  Are you sure? yes | no

mtkapp277 wrote 07/07/2023 at 14:59 • point

You could maybe have it auto pair to your phone to download log file. Then maybe automate uploading to the gov sites too!

  Are you sure? yes | no

sciencedude1990 wrote 07/07/2023 at 15:03 • point

That's a neat idea.  I haven't tried the bluetooth on the pico yet, have you?

  Are you sure? yes | no

mtkapp277 wrote 07/10/2023 at 14:35 • point

I have not tried it yet. I see someone has started, but no real details on how he did this other than LightBlue app. https://www.hackster.io/news/set-sail-with-the-raspberry-pi-pico-w-5c581fbc4c62    &     https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/set-sail-in-the-pico-powered-roboat/

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mtkapp277 wrote 07/07/2023 at 14:57 • point

This is great! You should now build this into your car. Mount the button and power it from the car. 

  Are you sure? yes | no

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