Jacob V. Shankel

The enclosure was designed in CAD with a focus on product aesthetics, manufacturability, and ease of assembly. Inspired by mid-century modern television designs, the housing incorporates mounting features for the display, controls, and electronics, along with a removable rear panel secured by embedded magnets for tool-free access. The geometry was optimized for reliable 3D printing while producing a clean, consumer-style appearance.

This project required integrating the display, controls, and electronics into a custom-designed enclosure while ensuring reliable electrical connections and clean internal cable routing. I soldered and assembled the hardware, configured the open-source ESP32 radar software, and performed system testing to verify proper functionality. The completed device highlights skills in electronics assembly, system integration, debugging, and product development.

The enclosure was designed as a companion piece to Radar Vision, carrying the same retro product-design language into a jukebox-inspired form. The housing organizes the touchscreen, front details, speaker opening, rear ventilation, cable access, and internal electronics while maintaining a finished consumer-product appearance. A removable stylus is integrated into the front of the enclosure so it remains accessible without becoming a separate loose accessory.

A CYD ESP32 touchscreen connects to my Spotify account and serves as the dedicated control interface. When playback is active, the display shows the current music information and provides direct controls to pause or resume playback, advance to the next song, or return to the previous song. This turns a phone-based streaming service into a persistent physical interface that is easier to use in a shared setting.

The project was motivated by a simple usability problem: when music is playing for a group, checking the current song or changing playback through a personal phone can interrupt the experience. The jukebox creates a visible, dedicated interaction point for the room. Integrating the ESP32 display into a purpose-built enclosure helped turn the electronics and software into a more approachable physical product rather than a standalone development board.

The enclosure was designed to turn a standard thermal receipt printer into a compact desktop appliance. The housing provides access to the paper slot, controls, and power while giving the printer a cleaner finished appearance. The design was optimized for 3D printing, practical assembly, and reuse across multiple software workflows.

The idea-printer workflow uses a dedicated Telegram bot to receive short thoughts from my phone and route them through a cloud automation process to the printer at home. This lets ideas be captured immediately from anywhere and converted into physical notes that can be organized or pinned to an idea board.

A second, independently configured Telegram bot uses the same physical printer as a reminder generator. Messages sent through this workflow are processed separately from idea submissions and printed as physical reminder slips, allowing one piece of hardware to serve two distinct personal-productivity functions.

Both workflows share the same thermal printer, custom enclosure, power connections, and physical output system while remaining separate at the bot and automation level. The completed platform demonstrates hardware packaging, system integration, cloud automation, workflow design, and practical product development.

I did not design the complete mecanum robot from scratch. The base robot and drivetrain were based on the online forum build that inspired the project. My mechanical design work focused on the upper enclosure: I modeled a custom body that fit over the existing chassis while maintaining wheel clearance, access to components, and practical mounting points. The enclosure was then 3D printed and integrated with the forum-based platform to create a more finished and recognizable product-style appearance.

To make the robot easier to operate, I designed a web-based controller called Mr. Roboto. With the batteries connected and the robot powered on, the robot provides a Wi-Fi connection that allows the user to access the control page from another device. The interface includes movement and rotation controls, speed adjustment, operating modes, a stop control, and telemetry-style information.

I structured Mr. Roboto as a home page rather than a controller tied permanently to one machine. The concept allows multiple compatible robots to be represented from the same interface, turning the page into a reusable remote hub for future Wi-Fi-controlled robotics projects.

This was one of my first larger soldering projects, so the initial wiring and solder joints were not especially clean and I encountered several electrical issues during assembly. Rather than replacing the system or abandoning the build, I worked through the problems using trial and error, continuity checks, and voltage measurements with a multimeter. That process helped me locate poor connections, correct faulty solder joints, and verify the wiring until the robot operated reliably.

The project became valuable hands-on practice in soldering, electrical troubleshooting, hardware integration, and systematic debugging. It also reinforced the importance of testing individual connections and subsystems instead of treating the finished assembly as a single black box when something goes wrong.