20. Project development¶
Time management and essence of the project¶
In the beginning Neil adviced us to work in a clever way. In Fab Academy this means that you should be able to use the weekly assignments for the final project as much as possible. For me this was a good advice and I immediately started to think my final project. I wanted to work in optimal way, in the sense of time management.
I also understood very soon, that I need to do the weekly documentation right away, along the assignments. This is how the work will not pile up. I decided to keep the schedule and optimize the work that is needed. This also means that I was not able to learn very many design programs, I needed to concentrate to learn to use Fusion 360 and Inkscape well.
I made the final project plan to cover the main parts:
- learning 2D and 3D design: weeks 3 and 4
- learning laser-cutting and vinyl cutting: week 4
- learning 3D printing: week 6
- making sensors: week 11
- making led control electronics: week 12
After week 12 it was possible to start working with the actual final project and to design and make to needed parts.
The essence of my final project is to have following:
- laser-cut plywood lampshade
- led strip inside, wrapped around 3D printed holder
- sensors made of vinyl-cut copper
- electronics hidden between the midsole and bottom parts
- Capacitive touch sensors brightening and dimming the lights
In addition to the parts it is important to finalize the documentation and presentation. I reserved 14th Jun for my presentation, so that was a good goal to have everything done.
What is the deadline? How much time do I have left?¶
My presentation is on this week Friday, so I still have couple of days left before that. After the presentation I have one more week to do the corrections that might be needed based on the comments.
What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?¶
My documentation of the weekly assignments is almost done. I am still missing the global evaluation comments, so some work might come from there.
I have done presentation slide and video.
For my final project I need to make a sw correction. I am using capacitive touch sensors and when I attached the sensors in my lamp, I noticed that sensor cables are interfering with each others. I am planning to modify the sensor borad sw to adjust sensor threshold values so that sensors will behave correctly. I am planning to do that by Thursday this week.
I still need to complete the documentation of my final project, but also that is almost done. I am planning to do this by Friday this week.
How will I complete the remaining tasks in time?¶
I have plenty of time for the remaining tasks, that won’t be a problem. I just hope that I will have some days for the global evaluation comments.
I have defined a schedule for the different tasks in the previous question.
What has worked?¶
It was nice to be able to use many of the assignment weeks for the final project. Without that I would have been very busy with the final project.
For me the “document while you work” works fine. The documentation is so huge part of Fab academy, that it would be impossible for me to work any other way.
What hasn’t?¶
Having huge amount of possible programs to use is not a good option, when you have only one week time for the assignments. In one week it is not possible to familiarize with many programs and after that choose the one you like. Even with one program it will take more than a week.
What questions still need to be resolved?¶
I need to make the sw correction for the capacitive touch sensors.
What have you learned?¶
A lot. Most of the processes we have used were completely new to me. Especially it has been nice to learn 2D and 3D designing, and of course after those the actual fabrication (laser cutting, 3D printing) and to see how nice tools there are.