Duderstadt Center Help Buttons

This repository contains the code for running the Raspberry Pi Help Buttons at the Duderstadt center. Clicking or tapping the screen triggers an AWS-backed workflow that posts a message to Slack and records events in Google Sheets.

Overview

• Summary: A small Python project that integrates a physical button (device) with AWS Lambda and Slack. When the button is pressed, the system posts a message to a configured Slack channel and logs events in Google Sheets. It has two main use-cases:
  1. Guest Help: Allows guests or visitors to request assistance.
  2. Staff Assistance: Acts as an internal signaling system, especially when staff members find themselves in situations where they might need immediate help from another adult on-site.
• Local Modules: gui.py, slack.py, aws.py, sheets.py, process.py.
• Remote Modules: lambda_function.py

Prerequisites

• Python 3.14+
• AWS account + credentials with permissions for Lambda, SQS, and CloudWatch
• Slack app with a bot token (bot OAuth token) and permissions to post messages
• Google API credentials for Sheets (stored in oauth/)

Installation

1. Create and activate a virtual environment (recommended):

   python3 -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate

2. Install dependencies (in order):

• OS-Specific Dependencies

  • Linux

    sudo apt-get install -y python3-dev libasound2-dev

• Universal Dependencies

  pip install --upgrade -r requirements.txt

3. Create and fill out configuration files (see config_defaults directory for required values)

• config/slack.json: Slack app settings
• config/button.json: Device settings
• config/aws.json: AWS-related settings
• config/google_config.json: Google Sheets config (spreadsheet id, tabs, etc.).

4. Get credentials from Google Cloud + place in oauth/ folder.

Staff members can also configure the functionality of each button on the relevant Google Sheet (defined in google_config.json)

Running Locally

• To run the GUI:

  python gui.py

Packaging For Lambda

Packaging

# Install Python Requests library
pip install --target ./package --upgrade -r requirements-aws.txt

# Copy config over to package, if it exists
copy config ./package/config

Troubleshooting

• Check logs/ for runtime logs and error traces.

License

• MIT License. See LICENSE in the repository root for more details.

Contact

• Maintainer: Nikki Hess (nkhess@umich.edu)