
Prototyping a connected piggy bank - asherwood
https://medium.com/@stuarttayler1/prototyping-a-connected-piggy-bank-1d4e507a9a77#.uop9w1ha6
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Mtinie
This is a really cool idea. I'm particularly impressed with the small details
that together make this project work.

As it so happens I was introduced to the Particle Photon during a hackathon
this weekend, and here it is again. It looks like it's a great little
controller to work with and probably should be on my list of things to pick up
soon.

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Animats
I can just see the commercial version of this. "You now have enough money to
buy Pokemon Double Crisis. Would you like to buy it now?"

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TeMPOraL
That is just plain evil. And unfortunately, I'm sure it will be attempted.

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xg15
The technical side of the project is awesome, but the rationale of "digital
piggy-banks" seem somewhat questionable to me.

First of all, there is still a long way (and a good number of discussions) to
go until we have a 100% cashless society. So is it really necessary today that
children deal with bank accounts and e-commerce before they even completely
grasped the concept of money? Moreso, this seems to tie "dealing with money"
inextricably to the smartphone. A bad idea if you want to teach children to
get away from computers now and then.

Second, the children seem to have a lot less agency than with an actual piggy-
bank: With a normal piggy-bank, the children are given money and can decide
for themselves if they want to save it or spend it on the next ice-cream
stand. (Even if they have to disobey their parents to do this, it's still a
choice). With digital cash, the parents/relatives/etc aren't giving the money
to the kid anymore, they're sending it directly to the piggy-bank. There is
nothing the kids themselves can/have to do anymore.

Both the OP project and the one Asturaz posted seem to have recognized this as
a shortcoming and tried to fix it by adding some longime planning options
("you can choose what you want to save _for_ ") or some actions without
consequences so there is at least _something_ that the kid can do. But I think
those provide a very differenct concept of "choice" than a normal piggy-bank
does.

Again, the concrete projects are pretty cool and this is more a general rant
and not supposed to be criticism of the blog author.

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mattdw
A New Zealand bank has made this one:
[https://cleverkash.asb.co.nz](https://cleverkash.asb.co.nz)

Obvious there's a certain advantage to already being a bank for projects like
this.

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asherwood
There are but it's not long until Monzo is a bank & they will have an open API
so this type of integration should be straightforward.

[https://community.monzo.com/t/status-of-the-
api/5497/4?u=ale...](https://community.monzo.com/t/status-of-the-
api/5497/4?u=alexs)

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Asturaz
a kickstarer project which have observed se same issue with cashless society
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/187482891/ernittm-
the-s...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/187482891/ernittm-the-smart-
piggy-bank)

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mccolin
Really beautiful way to make an account physical. Oink!

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mdevere
i love it!

