1.Principles & Practices; Project Management:

04-02-2021(I was late due to Covid-19 quarantine restrictions) | Jai Hanani

2. Note: Due to Covid-19 quarantine requirements, I was only able to join FabAcademy full-time half-way through this week. Therefore, the documentation for this week, and last week would not be as complete, detailed as the documentation of subsequent weeks.

  1. 1. First and foremost, I went through the Fab Charter: here
  2. 2. Next, I have spend some timing sketching the project I want to work on. Here it is:
    3. A rough sketch from my initial plannings...

  3. To put it simply, it is a wall-mounted punching bag which can guage the thrust of your punch, and actuate a mechanical switch, if the said thrust exceeds some pre-defined threshold.

    2. Description:

    I place my sleeping mattress against a wall. When I work, I, in most cases, turn off the fan. Due to that extended period of sedantariness whenever I want it back on I don't switch it on normally, I jab the mattress, which in turn would exert some thrust on the switch and turn it on. I used to always think that one day I should make a punch-bag covering all the switchboards in my room, which would allow me to switch-on anything only if I could punch above some threshold. That day is now.

    3. Initital Research:

    1. For Sensors:
      1. Got some awesome recommendations from Electrical Engineering StackExchange - Here
      2. Piezo vs Strain Guage
    2. For Switch Mechanism:
      1. DIY Linear servo actuator
      2. Solenoid Push-Pull

    4. What I have decided and what's to be done?:

    1. 1. I have two options infront of me - (i) Force Sensitive Resistor; (ii) Gas-filled interior with a barometric pressure sensor.
    2. 2. Based on the thrust exerted, I can actuate the switch using a servo, solenoid or some other mechanism I may come up with. I need not couple the switch mechanism with the sensor.
    3. 3. I should be able to inteface with the micro-controller and change the minimum thrust threshold using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
    4. 4. I should research about what kind of stuff is infused into a punching-bag or a mantis mitt or a strike shield. It is my intention to make the punch surface as neat and usable as possible.

    5. Compartmentalization of the project into individual week assignments:

    1. 1. Electronics Production: Microcontroller/Sensor
    2. 2. Electronics Design: Microcontroller/Switch Mechanism
    3. 3. Embedded Programming: Controling the actuator based on sensor readings.
    4. 4. Input Devices: Sensor
    5. 5. Output devices: Display LED/Actuator/Speaker-bot
    6. 6. Netowrking & Communications: Set the threshold over Wi-fi or Bluetooth
    7. 7. Molding & Casting: The punch-bag
    8. 8. Composites: The punch-bag
    9. 9. Application & Interface Programming: Changing the threshold/Speaker-bot

---*** Owing to the fact that it does not serve any real-world utility, and the fact that it is an amalgamatio of two different seperately-existable projects, I have abondoned it, and in turn made a height-measuring device for my final project ***---

1. First, I have generated SSH keys and connected them to my GitLab account

2. Then, I cloned the pre-generated repository and built a website

3. Then, of course, I pushed it back.

4. I know this beforehand, so this exercise didn't prove to be that hard

5. Later, I added the markdown source file of student agreement to my local repo and pushed it my gitlab repo.

6. I just used basic HTML for Semantics, and CSS for aligning. The preliminary design of my website is very utilitatian. The design is inspired from Patrick Collison's Website, as well as http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

7. I am using Ubuntu 20.x version on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 on my Windows computer.

8. I am using brand-new Windows Terminal. I am using VS Code as my IDE. I am using LiveServer VS Code extension for local development.