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Up to now, I finished to sew the child seat cover and I placed Flora Neopixel v2 on the keychain flower shape. In addition, I modeled the pacifier on Fusion360 and I printed it with the Ultimaker. I also milled and soldered the master board and the slave one. Then, I thought about their features and I worte two codes for them. Before doing it, I configured HC-05 Bluetooth modules because my master will work as a sender and the slave as a receiver. More than this, I sketched the dimensions I wanted for my velostat pressure sensor and I tested its work with the code I'm going to upload on the master board. Basically, the project can't be seen as a final version of a prototype, so I had to think about some redesign things. Using an interrupt can free the microcontroller to get some other work done while not missing the input, so I added it as a notification required. The user may decide the preferred condition and the keychain and the pressure sensor will work in a proper question of time. Otherwise, they start work in improper context or wrong situations. More than this, I can say I have to better define the aestethical shape of the external case and one of my future improvements will be related to better hide wires and connections in the best way as possible. I have to keep in mind I'm partially dealing with wearable technology and all the elements must be placed in the right order.
I think everyone can always do better. Even if I scheduled my activities in order to finish in time, sometimes it has been hard respect them. You have to keep in mind thing can't always work at the first test and so, most of the time you have to solve problems and spend your time in debug workflow.
Now, it's time to draw conclusions. All I did for my final project is available here. The section starts from the general idea and it is developed with all the update I did during these months. Thanks to the questions below, I could gave an idea of time management, but I'd like to add some reflections on what I wrote during the application & implication week.
The schedule I planned was the following one:
I started working on the project during the wildcard week. I sketched the dimensions for the seat cover and by the end of the 27th of May I respected my planning schedule. By that moment until the end, it has been a bit difficult following it. The work on the final PCBs has been really important because they needed to work properly. How could I show my final project without them? They were the kernel of the whole system. I had to pay attention to ATmega 328p pinouts configuration. I wanted to be be sure of the pins connections (pwm, external pads, analog input...and so on!) I chose for my elements. It brought me away some time, so I finished working on the electronics fuctionalities on the first week of June. Codes for master and slave were ready by the dates I had in mind. But, being honest the final version it has been saved some days before the final presentation. Why? Well, because, before programming both my PCBs I did many tests using an Arduino Uno. Only at the end I changed the pinMode configuration considering my MCU. In other words, I can say I finished working on the final project with a bit of delay. I had planned the end for the 4th of June, just for have a whole week dedicated to the problem solving. Practically, I finished the project the 11th June, but...there's an upside to this! I slowly focused my attention to all the elements and it allowed me to do things just once (or at least twice!). That's the reason why I avoid unsolvable problems during the final check. Moreover, I had a bit of extra time to organize the packaging (hiding wires), take a look to the documentation and prepearing the final slide and the video clip.
Therefore, I can say I respected my schedule timeline only partially. Some things were reversed and I extended the whole time. For example, velostat and wereable technology are things that fascinated me so much, but they have to be studied well and materials are delicate. The pressure sensor can be ruined easily and it gave me some problems during the tests. Tips for the future? Planning activities is essential! Time management is one of the most important thing in order to start and finish working on any kind of project. Personally, I always do a planning schedule of the actions required and I'm going to continue doing it at the end of FabAcademy too. Neverthless, being precised is not enough! I've learned, once again, don't take any of it for granted: unexpected events are always ready to come up (at work and in daily life too).
Finally, quoting few lines I wrote two weekg ago..."I will say the project correctly works if:
So, my final evaluation is positive and I'm happy about the achieved result. More info about the final project can be find clicking on the following links:
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