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1. Principles and practices

This week’s assignment was to plan and sketch a potential idea of my final project in which I can use most of the skills which I would learn in the upcoming weeks.

BEATING HEART

Project Idea

The idea is to make a human heart which looks like a real heart and also functions somewhat in the same way. I saw a 3D model of a human heart on a website and started thinking about what more I could do with that. Then, I came up this idea to make a physical model of human heart which will have a lot of electronics to mimic the real heartbeat effect.
Also, this project would be very helpful for school students in understanding the functioning of human heart in an interactive way.

Sketches

Below are the sketches of the project which give a rough idea of the final look of the project.

Sketch1

Sketch2

Download Sketch1
Download Sketch2

Parts

  1. Heart - 3D printed or molded
  2. Arduino - Main controller
  3. Pulse sensor - To read heart rate
  4. LCD Display - To display heart rate in bpm
  5. Swing motor - To rotate the heart continuously for 360-degree view
  6. Water pump - To pump the water/fluid in the heart
  7. Memory card - To play stored sounds
  8. Clear acrylic - For top frame
  9. Plywood - For bottom box
  10. Distance sensor
  11. Push buttons
  12. LEDs

Functioning

Beating effect
The Pump, LED and speaker work in sync to mimic the real heartbeat effect. Water is pumped in and out to give the contraction and relaxation effect, the speaker produces the “lub-dub” sound and LEDs blink.

Modes
It has 3 operating modes-

1. Default- In default mode the heart keeps rotating with a fixed speed and distance sensor keeps reading the distance of an obstacle(person). When a person comes towards the heart, the heart rate increases successively.

2. Manual- It has 3 buttons which when pressed show the 3 different heart rate - Normal, Relaxed, Excited

3. Real-time- If anyone wants to check his/her real-time heart rate, it can be done by pressing the finger against Pulse Sensor.

Skills used

  • CAD
  • 3D Printing
  • Laser cutting
  • CNC routing
  • Programming
  • PCB Fabrication
  • i/o Devices

Challenges

  • 3D Modelling - Designing a 3D model of the heart in CAD software is a big challenge.
  • Material selection - Will have to select a material which is flexible and gives organic look to the heart.
  • Design challenge - As I want a continuous rotation of heart so I will have to work on such a design in which pipes and wires don’t tangle.
  • Programming - Program the microcontroller to run all parts in sync to produce real heartbeat effect.

Research

Learning outcomes

  • I learned how to sketch a human heart ;) Thanks to wikihow
  • Learned a little about documentation process.

”..And I heard the heartbeat which was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life.” - Beyonce

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.