Arduino is a very popular open-source electronics prototyping platform for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Shields are boards that can be plugged on top of the Arduino board extending its capabilities. MICO Shield follows the same philosophy as Arduino: it is an open-source hardware and software project and easy to use.
MICO is an acronym for Mobile Interactive voice response & COntrol. MICO connects to a cell phone via audio jack and it has circuits to detect and answer calls. It then uses pre-recorded voice prompts to present information and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone keypad entry to gather responses. Responses can then be used to control lights, motors and other actuators, and get readings of temperature, wind speed, proximity and other sensors. The caller can be just a few feet or hundreds of miles away!
Igor S. Ramos is an Electrical Engineer and his full-time job is to design electrical systems for heavy construction equipment.. Away from work he enjoys creating electronics projects that involves circuit board design and microcontroller software, such as MICO. Igor showcases his project at his personal website http://www.dossant.com/projects/
The money raised from this Kickstarter Project will be spent developing, prototyping, and manufacturing MICO. Printed Circuit Boards will be manufactured by OSH Park. If the available funding exceeds the target, PCB manufacturing may move to a higher volume supplier and assembly may be outsourced.
Igor’s innovative MICO Shield is the result of over two years working on its building blocks. Igor realized it can be frustrating for non-experts to have Arduino interfacing to a cell phone. That is his motivation to produce MICO. He wishes to provide the open-source community with a development platform that takes away the complexity of cell phone interfacing so that Arduino users can focus on their project.