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The aim of the project is to build a money box controlled by an Arduino board.

The money box:

• accepts coins of three denominations (0.50, 1 and 2 EUR);
• displays amount and number of coins on a 16 x 2 LCD;
• amount and number of coins are stored in EEPROM to survive power losses;
• rejects coins when its coin container is full (when coins are not accepted, a red LED is lit up);
• recognizes the owner via an RFID key fob (a Master tag is provided to change user's tag - e.g. in case of loss);
• secures the coin container via a solenoid lock;

Money boxes (piggy banks) serve as a pedagogical device to teach the rudiments of thrift and savings to children.

The money box ('salvadanaio' in italian) has been nicknamed, following an established tradition among makers, 'salvaduino'.

Board/Microcontroller

The money box is controlled by an Arduino UNO (rev. 1). At the heart of the board lies an ATmega328P microcontroller that, with the following specifications, has more than enough processing power for the task:

• Flash Memory: 32 KB;
• SRAM: 2 KB;
• EEPROM: 1 KB;
• Clock: 16 MHz;

Software/IDE

The firmware for the money box was written in Arduino 1.8.7.

• code can be found here;
• Arduino IDE can be found here;

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