The Uncertain 7-Cube
Nick Poole 
Behind the Uncertainty
Since magic isn’t making this thing tick, what is? Well, it’s a bit of a jumble:
The ability of the Uncertain 7-Cube to remain in ‘stasis’ while waiting to be picked up or bumped is a function of the Wake-on-Shake board. The Wake-on-Shake uses an ultra low power accelerometer to detect motion. When motion is detected, the on-board microcontroller wakes up and turns on power to the rest of the cube.
The ability to speak (magical as it may seem) is actually provided by the emic2 Text-to-Speech module from Parallax. This module simply takes character strings over a serial connection, parses them into pronounceable words, and uses a built-in voice synthesizer to speak them out loud. Our Mono Amp breakout turns the volume to 11 so you can clearly hear the cube’s non-advice.
All of the different non-committal answers are stored on an Arduino Pro Mini, which is programmed to randomly choose an answer from the list and transmit it over the serial port. When it gets a signal back from the emic2 module that it’s done talking, the Pro Mini shuts everything down and the cube goes back into stasis.
The emic2 module has an input voltage of 5V, so the supply voltage for the cube needed to be able to provide that. A lithium polymer battery and a Powercell board provide 5V to the system. The Powercell also provides an easy way to charge the battery without having to remove it.