Zackary Tileston

Curtkrew

This was the final project for my Engineering Design Thinking course that I took as an elective. This class was kind of like a mini senior design project but as an individual, not a group project. The Curtkrew is an automatic curtain rod I made to turn natural lighting into an alarm clock. The basic idea is that the curtain rod is a corkscrew that moves the rings of a blackout curtain along the rod to open and close the curtain. The Curtkrew uses a NEMA 17 stepper motor, H-bridge motor driver, and an ESP32 microcontroller. The ESP32 enables the Curtkrew to be controlled via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, but for this initial prototype I have it set to open and close using buttons on the electrical housing. In a future revision, I would like to add a central support to the rod and improve the code. Currently, I am no longer working a night shift job so the Curtkrew is no longer needed, but I will gladly make a version 2 when the time comes.