A1-Principles and Practices

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About Principles and Practices

Objective:

To Plan and Sketch a Potential Final Project (Product)

Learning Outcomes:

Communicate an initial project proposal

Opening Quotes:

(Precisely explains progression of my state of mind)

“A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thoughts...”
“You can’t follow your Heart when it is more confused than your head….”
“Indecision and delays are the parents of failure.”
“Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear.”

Fab Charter:

I have read the Fab Charter. It is a document which answers all the Wh? type questions about the Fab Academy. The link for the Fab Charter is here.

Student Agreement:

I have read and understood the Agreement for pursuing the Fab Academy. It states the various responsibilities of the Fab Academy and the Students pursuing it.here.

I am not a person who has original ideas or a nature of observing things and environment to make them better. I thought that whatever needs to be invented is already done. I went on with certain ideas after exploring internet and looking around; asking friends and familiars.

Few Ideas that popped up were:
1. Device to Change Behavior of Honking Horns at the Traffic Signals by increasing the timer if Sound reaches particular decibels. It can be used near Hospitals and Schools/Colleges.
2. Gas Sensors for workers descending in the Wells, Drainage systems for cleaning it. It would warn them about the levels of toxicity of Gases.
3. Inducing Behavior of saving Electricity; Energizers in the Malls to create a positive vibe by turning Stairs into Piano. The walking on the Stairs would create a symphony/ melody and in turn provoke people to use stairs instead of elevators.
4. A camera which would sense sound and turn towards the speaker in Round Table Conference meetings instead of asking the person to confront the camera or move the camera in Meetings.
5. I have seen thieves snatching chains and gold jewellery from the ladies on Railway stations. A locket with GPS will give us the location. Distress / Love messages to be sent over to the responsible and loved ones in certain situations through a locket in the neck.

All these problems were already solved by many.

Suhas Labade Sir told me to change the approach and leave the mindset of thinking about the technology but instead think of the problems nearby which would have high utility, feasibility and impact on the near ones.
He also shared some of the projects that Vigyan Ashram has successfully completed like –
1. Cutting on electricity bills by creating a dashboard for knowing the On/Off position and status of electrical appliances.
2. Fabricating automatics solar powered fan for blacksmith to help keep up the heat.
3. Incinerator for Sanitary Napkins
4. Solar powered sensors for various purposes.
5. Compost manufacturing from Domestic household Waste by maintaining suitable humidity, temperature conditions for the Culture.

“Sharpen your Axe before Cutting down a Tree” – This eases your efforts and pains later. Well begun is half done. This tempted me to work on “Learn to Unlearn”. I would now be thinking of the project on which I may work and pursue forward.
So, as of now my Project is not yet finalized. But I will be uploading it in few days.

I have:

1. Read the Fab Charter which answers all the Wh? Type questions about FABLAB.

I haven’t:

1. Sketched my Final Project Idea
2. Described What it will do and Who will use it.

In the next week, I kept on searching for the ideas that may be relevant and doable in the stipulated time and constraints of fablab. Project Ideas under Thought process/Discussion:

1. Gas Sensors for Manual Scavengers:

Problem: Deaths of the Sewage workers or manual scavengers
Instead of ban on manual scavenging, there are approx. 2.1 million manual scavengers. Its not only limited to sewers. Labours enter the wells for its regeneration and do the excavation.
These old wells have all sort of waste deposited in them for years. Hydrogen Sulphide gas is detected by its foul smell. But this gas blocks the smelling sensation after some time. This leads to its inhalation and ultimately the labours may feel the ill effects like nausea etc. After excavation, blasts, the H2S is liberated more.
So, I wanted to make a sensor-based Gas detector tied to the body of the labours which would sense the various toxic gases and alarm the manual scavengers about the rising levels of these toxic gases. It may also alert the people waiting on the ground to rope the labours up.

2. Smart/Digital Milk Can:

Problem: Farmers or the Milk producers don’t know about the yield of their milk before they submit it to their Milk collection centres (Dairy).
Issues-
The Weighing Balance at the Dairy might be faulty or calibrated differently and show false readings.
Farmers/Milk producers have to maintain the receipts of their supply to the Dairy for actualization of payments.
The reasons behind less yield of milk could be addressed and monitored timely.
Farmers rely on the capacity of Milk cans to assume the yield of milk.
The rate of milk is dependent on the Fat and SNF content of the milk.
Chances of theft and Adulteration are higher.
This post originally appeared on Food+Tech Connect.

Solution:
My idea is to fabricate a digital Milk Can which would
-display various parameters of milk when it is in Can i.e. Volume (Litres), Fat and SNF Content
-lock the lid for stopping the theft and adulteration through a keypad
-a QR Code which would display the details of the milk when scanned
-Create and Provide data log for monitoring, retrieval and usage as needed
Benefits:
This would enable the Milk producers and Farmers to-
-Convenient Data Log for easy access (on Mobiles), monitoring and studies.
-Prevent adulteration by water and vegetable oil, theft of milk
-Grading of the milk in Best to Worst category for consumption
-Could be also used by the Customers to know about the quality of their milk
Limitations:
-Process:
The milk is first milked in the bucket and then transferred to the can for transportation.
-Fat and SNF Content cannot be tested externally; needs sample.
-Lactometers are expensive
-Conversion of Weight to Volume (Litres)
-Density of the milk may vary for calculation of the volume.
Sketch of my Proposed Project:

Project Sketch	Project Block Diagram

3. Digital Spoon

It is generally said in India about Salt that you may use salt as per taste in any recipe. This salt is responsible for many health-related issues. Also, if I need to dispense certain amount (powder) of medicines or use fixed amount of ingredients, we rely on the experience and assumptions.
Kalyani, one of the Engineering students, fond of cooking developed a recipe from bajra, flax seeds, jaggery, drumstick, ghee to be dispensed for health benefits.
The dosage is in the form of laddu’s or chikki. The weight of Laddoo must be 20gm each. Even the ingredients must be mixed in exact quantity.
While making Laddoo’s manually, I observed her process of binding them. She would weigh the premix and then make laddoo out of it. This is a very tedious task. Also, the mix needs to be binded when its hot or else the laddoo’s would deform or become very hard.
I thought of making a spoon for her which would have a load sensor and show the reading on the panel which eases the task of adding or removing the premix.

Trial in TinkerCAD

4. Goat Weight Measurement and Management System (Goat IT):

"Goat is the Poor Man's Cow"
Problem: Goat Farming in many areas is unorganized. Goats are identified in a flock based on their color, horns, size etc. for recording their weight, health status, nutrition, vaccination schedule, milk yield etc.
Goat Farming business is growing because of various reasons– - High Nutrition - Less Investment - Growing Demand of Goat meat
Issues-
Weight could not be documented properly
Goats cannot be differentiated and identified easily
Still, the documentation is done in the notebooks manually.
Farmers rely on their experience and extpertise to assume about the health status of the flock
Solution:

My Goat Binder
go360 Bio Track by Agsights are already available solutions in the American market.

My idea is to fabricate a System which would
- Give QR codes to the goats
- Which when scanned, will be able to record weight, temperature, heartrate, vaccination status, nutrition etc.
- Which would be then sent to the cloud
- Where a datalog will be created
- and retrieved for proper maintenance of the goats.
-Create and Provide data log for monitoring, retrieval and usage as needed
Benefits:
This would enable the Goat Farmers to-
-Convenient Data Log for easy access (on Mobiles), monitoring and studies.
-Could be also used by the Customers to know about the quality of their goats meat
Limitations:

I will restrict my fablab project to measuring the weight of the goats on daily basis and display it through a output device and simultaneously sending it to cloud.
In Spiral development, all the sensors may be joined and complete health data of goats can be maintained.
Sketch of my Proposed Project: