Ok, so with this in mind I gathered the components from around the workshop from projects that were in progress but unsupervised:

• Orion development board that is basically an Arduino Uno clone with some big easy to use ports
• Touch button to allow those without telepathic powers to start the thing
• Relay board for both Fan and Soldering Iron
• Audio module for motivating the human
• Fumes absorption fan and filters
• Soldering iron, Soldering mat, and third hands for the ones with only two
• Power supply for the low voltage stuff
• An outlet for the soldering iron and main plug for the whole thing
• LED lights - Neopixels cuz the whole thing needed some zazz
• CNC cut MDF

I had some help from our friends, the robots from BalkanWave for the enclosure. I wanted some cool ass octagons and some ridges to place the LED lights and at the same time, I am thinking of maintaining the overall dimensions so I can stack more of these stations neatly when they are not being used.  Something like this https://www.tinkercad.com/things/iiWZFVsH058-tools-box-stackable

Once I had the enclosure I painted it black and yellow to suggest to the humans that it's an area they should proceed with caution, the smell of burned skin is a bit too common in our workplace. After that, I started wrapping up the electronics, I like to freestyle and just arrange them where they fit and according to the shorter distance from where they are needed to keep it neat and clean. 

The development board was just laying around but any Arduino Uno spin-off will do, basically, I control the relays, audio module, and LED strip and receive commands from the button.

The connections were dictated by the capabilities of the development board and you have clear labels of the ports in the code if you want to follow allong, I won't go into super details since you can use whatever you have on gripper (or hand if you lack grippers). Be advised we are working with AC mains that tend to make beings twitch when touching it.

The system works like this: You touch the button, the Soldering Iron starts heating up, you are notified via both color and sound when it's ready to use and the light goes full white so you can do your stuff. Once done you either press the button again to close it or just forget about it and it automatically closes after 10 minutes of inactivity.

When working to keep you on your toes random audio bits are shouted at the worker to motivate him/her and probably burn their fingers. Since I have finished the project we had one less fire in the workplace and the humans took a liking to the machine and finished soldering tasks faster. If you don't believe me just watch this video:

I would say it was a satisfying project and it's going to be the birthplace of more crazy prototypes. Stay tuned for more hardware adventures!

Zura OUT!