Week 1: Principles and Practices

Assignment for this week: plan and sketch a potential final project

As I just have a rough idea what I will be capable of doing the end of Fab Academy course, just sketched two nice ideas for me. Hopefully at least one of them will meet the requirements for the final projact and I will gain enough knowledge and technics to be able to make them.

  • Smart puzzle
    I have worked as a teacher in different schools for many years and in one of them we had many students with special needs. In some cases disorders are obvious or easy to diagnose. But if one has writing and reading disorders (dysgraphia and dyslexia ) or sometimes both, it’s a bit hard to discover them and help a kid to overcome. My colleagues in school who worked with kids having special needs were creative enough to make some game-tools to help them. My first idea for the final project has an inspiration from that beautiful kids, who are struggling with the simplest thing for us: reading and writing.
    I am planning to have a board with places to put puzzle blocks on it. I will be connected to a device (phone or computer) and will get commands from there. The teacher will type a word in app and put the picture in the special frame. Kid will see a picture of the same word in the special frame. Kid will have puzzle blocks with letters on them and should put accordingly to their places. If they put a wrong block, red light will turn on, otherwise if eveything is correct, green light will be on. Each letter-block will have a different type of connection with the main board, so that program can indicate which letter is there.
    According to this source “Children [with] dyslexia, besides having problems with standard written text, are also known to have problems remembering sequences, like in spelling, math problems, and stories. Also, quite often, children have problems relating to their fine motor skills as well." So this device will help them to develop their spelling and writing skills as well as motor skills. While checking previous final projects, I found something similar to this one. Hopefully it will help me to design mine.
  • Lighting tail bag for bikes
    In Armenia the byking culture is not developed yet, we don’t have proper roads for bikes and it is unusual for people to see cyclists on the roads. On the same time bicycles are not well enough equipped to be visible on the roads. This is a big safety issue both for drivers and cyclists. That’s why an idea came to my mind, to create something which will be nice to have on a bike and at the same time will increase the level of safety.

    This is a simple tale-bag, which has a solar panel, lights and light sensor on it. During day time the battery will be charging and as soon as it’s getting darker lights will automatically go on. I'm going to collect feedbacks from my friends-cyclers as well to improve this model. I know that this seems a very simple thing but I believe that we do need it at least in my country.

Other assignments

Week 4: Electronics production

How to make your own PCB