Project Development

ID	Activity	Progess	Comments	Date
1.	Design the LED cube (Solidworks)	60%	--	20/06/2018
2.	Test and Learn the programming of LEDS	80%	--	30/06/2018
3.	Find alternatives to the soldering between the LED’s	30%	Wildcard Week	30/06/2018
4.	Laser Cut the and construction of the cube	0%	--	20/06/2018
5.	Connect the LED’s inside the cube	0%	--	15/07/2018
6.	Perform test with Arduino	0%	--	20/07/2018
7.	Design an interface to control the Cube	0%	--	30/07/2018
8.	Design a PCB to control the LED’s cube	0%	--	07/08/2018
9.	Integrate the PCB with the cube	0%	--	15/08/2018
10.	Final test with students and teachers	--	After Academy	--
11.	Create the git repository and instructables page	--	After Academy	--
12.	Improvements in design, programming and interface	--	After Academy	--

What has worked? what hasn't'?

Completed:

• Acquiring programmable LEDs was a great idea because it facilitates the wiring and programing of the cube since, unlike normal RGB LEDS, the programmable ones don’t need as much electric circuitry and multiplexing gets simplified.
• Using acrylic for the cube’s structure was a good choice. Acrylic plates are light, easy to cut, the transparent nature gives an elegant the appearance and perfect visualization of the lighted balls.

Not completed

• Using commercial conductive ink
  Graphite conductive ink has a very high electric resistance which presented a big problem with the problem in combination with the LEDs. The high resistance caused the wrong operation on the LEDs.
• Making my own conductive ink resulted more complicated than expected. Finding fine copper dust of high purity for better conductivity was almost impossible, and obtaining the dust through chemical means derived in high costs, long production time and low yield.
• The third alternative: Self-Adhesive copper tape.
  Many issues with this tape. Firstly delicate, and hard to manipulate. It wrinkles and even the vinyl cutter didn’t make a clean cut on it. Lastly, getting a big roll of cooper tape was impossible here in Mexico.

What have I learned

Time management is essential, planning ahead and scheduling are necessary to know what are the following phases and foresee any complications that may arise.
I have learned a lot of programming and programming logic, and how to integrate different digital fabrication techniques in a single project.

What questions need to be resolved?

Find an alternative to for the LED electric network connections sinces its a very time consuming process and for me it could be replaced with a digital fabrication technique.

Will the LED cube accomplish its objective of becoming a useful tool for teaching crystallographic structures?

How much time is left?

Unfortunately I didn't do a good job with my time management and there isn't enough time to have a finished product.