Principles and Practices

Tasks for this week:

• Plan and sketch a potential final project.

Project Idea 1- Piezoelectric Mechanical Keyboard

At the end of the FabAcademy programme, we have to develop a final project. The reasoning for planning a potential final project in the first week is to allow us to tailor our assignments in the coming weeks to things that can be applied in our final project. I am really interested in piezoelectricity, and would like to implement it in my final project.
My first idea is a piezoelectric mechanical keyboard, which would have a piezoelectric plate underneath each switch. When each mechanical switch is clicked, it deforms the piezoelectric plate to generate a current. This goes to capacitor, and when a sizeable amount is generated, it is released to the keyboard's battery to be charged. Although the current generated from each keystroke would be very minimal, I believe that a day's worth of typing, continuously over a long-term period, would provide significant energy production. This system cannot possibly be self-sufficient, but it is a good effort in increasing efficiency and extending battery life over the long-term.

Project Idea 2- Rubik's Cube Solving Machine

I have been really interested in learning how to solve the Rubik's cube. It is a really fun puzzle, and it fasciantes me to watch speed cubers solve them in a matter of seconds. I had learned all the algorithms, but I can only manage 50 seconds at best. This idea to make a machine that solves the Rubik's cube was inspired from some of the existing robots that can solve it in less than 5 seconds using Kociemba's algorithm. Whilst this is an existing concept, I believe that it would be an interesting project to work on and it will involve many of the production processes over the next weeks. I could also look at adding a tutorial feature, in which you can upload what your current scrambled cube looks like, then the machine will provide step-by-step instructions to solving it. Overall, this project will result in a fast-solving robot, as well as something that can help the user improve their solving skills.