You Got Mailbot – A Slack App [U]

You Got Mailbot – A Slack App [U]

by | Dec 8, 2018 | Blog, Linux

Current favorite* intern, Braedan Kennedy, has whipped up one of our favorite Slack apps yet.  You Got Mailbot is a Slack app which posts a photo from the inside of our mailbox when we receive snail mail. As a bonus, You Got Mailbot posts a snapshot of the first face it detects when the mailbox is opened. You Got Mailbot posts a photo to Slack with the first face it detects when the mailbox is opened You Got Mailbot is written in Python and runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero computer which, along with it’s tiny camera, is about as big as a pack of gum. The Raspberry Pi Zero connects to the network over wifi and starts recording video as soon as there is a spike in brightness when the mailbox is opened from the outside.  The Pi Zero isn’t very powerful so it generally takes 3 – 6 minutes for it to process the video and run the face detection algorithms. Facial recognition is performed by the Raspberry Pi using Haar-cascade Detection in OpenCV. If a good face match is not found then the middle frame of the video clip is posted instead. In addition to writing the code, Braedan designed and 3D printed a case and mount for a Raspberry Pi and camera which is mounted inside the mailbox facing the door.  We ran a USB cable down into the mailbox to power the Pi. Version 2 – The Artificial Intelligence Update The Raspberry Pi Zero computer has many defining features, such as built in wifi/bluetooth capability and its minuscule form factor, which make it an ideal platform for projects such as...