Assemble the frame:

Glue together the four pieces of the frame as shown.

Set up the servos:

Mount the two servos on either side of the frame. Attach a power module to the right servo so that it will go to its 0% power position and hold there. Screw the servo arm (B) onto the servo shaft so that it is horizontal with the top plate. Attach a power module and a dimmer to the left servo and turn the dimmer all the way up so that it will go to its 100% power position and hold there. Screw the servo arm (B) onto the servo shaft so that it is horizontal with the top plate. *Because the servos are facing eachother, they will need to spin in opposite directions to pull the levers. That is why one one servo is set to 0% and the other to 100%

Assemble the levers: 

Insert the threaded rod through the holes on the frame, adding nuts and levers as you go. We used a little mounting putty in the threads of the rod to hold the nuts in place (otherwise they easily loosen over time).

Attach the levers to the servo arms:

We used a Tamiya 3mm threaded shaft set to attach each lever to the servo arms. As a safety feature, our water cooler requires you to push two buttons at once for hot water, so two of our levers are connected to the same servo arm.

Add your circuit:

Put together the circuit shown in the circuit diagram. If your water cooler has both hot and cold options, you can use one circuit for each. We put four mounting boards on the frame to hold our circuit, but you could also use shoes.

Program your Arduino(s):

The code for the Arduinos is included above. You will probably have to adjust how far your servos turn in order to push the buttons. To change how far the servos turn, adjust the variables servoPush and servoNoPush in the code. If you try to turn the servos too far, it will wear them out over time, so only turn them as much as you need to push the buttons.

Set up your data logging:

We used cloudBits connected to IFTTT (If This Then That) to log every time Mr. Thirsty dispenses water. See the images above for examples of our recipes.