Principles and Practices

Assignment for week one (January 29, 2014)

Assignment part 1: Website designing

The first class was held the Wednesday of the 29th January 2014. In this session, it was explained that each week students are to build a page documenting what they did for that week. The documentation for the week would include:

what a student did,
what they learned,
what didn't work, and
the lessons learned.

The idea is for students to document as they work. Futhermore, various project management principles were discussed - to assist students with their work through out the course.
At the end of week 1, students were to build a personal site in the class archive describing themselves and their final project.

I reviewed various web development tools and content management systems. As I was rather a novice in the web development field, I went through a few tools. Impatience being my weakness; I soon got frustrated with some of the tools, as such, I stuck with the one that made sence to me and was easy to learn. It is to this end that I chose to develop my webpage using SeaMonkey. SeaMonkey is an all-in-one internet application suite - with a web browser and HTML editing made simple. It took me 3 hours to get the hang of SeaMokey and I managed to develop my webpage. While I was succeeding in developing my webpage; I was failing miserably in the installation of mercurial on both my PC and MacBook. This resulted in me sending my content to my instructor, who then "pushed" my work to the archive.

Assignment part 2: Final project brief:

As part of assignment for week one, we needed to think of a final project and post it on our webpage. I have a number of project ideas, however I wanted my projec to solve a particular need and be utilised. Due to my current role as a South African FabLab Coordinator, I met a number of young people with brilliant project ideas - projects that were meant to solve a particular problem.

Project idea 1: Crowd Counting System for Township Clinic

One of those project ideas was through my engagement with a clinic in Soshanguve - which is just next to the FabLab. They approached us with a challeneg that required a technological solution. I have decided to design and fabricate the solution - however, I discovered that week that they managed to get a commercial system that resolved their problem. So, I had to think of another project idea.

Project idea 2: Melodical Potty

Another ptoject idea came about during a visit to one my friends. She has a 18 month old toddler, whom she's battling to "potty train. Her son is just not using the "potty" and this has become a tediuos daily exercise for her. We were discussion possible solutions to this problem and that's when I got a project idea to make her a low-cost potty that plays a tune, to encourage her son.

Toddlers are children between the ages of 1 and 3 years old, and the age when their curiousity goes to the roof. They like to touch things and get excited by what they see. This potty will have a lid and when the lid is closed, there will not be any tune playing. The tune will sound only when the lid is opened - which is intented to interest and stimulate the child to sit on the potty. The tune will play until the child finished his/her business and then the lid is closed again, to stop the tune.

There are two approaches I considered. The first one was using a simple melody circuit that is similar to those of greeting cards. The other circuit is using a Attiny micro instead of a melody generator IC.

option 1

My hope is that throughout this program I will learn skills and gain the know-how to refine this final project. My intention is to use all FabLab processes and technologies in the development of this final project. Furthermore, my hope is that this system resolves the challenge faced by this clinic and many other clinics in township areas - through participation of the community the clinics serve.