Intro

The goal of this week was to answer to some very important question about the final project in order to have a correct planning of the things to do, to buy, to make and also the very objectives of the projects.

What will it do?

It is duck, a pool digital companion with a playful and bright personality. It will encourage people to stay outside, play and have fun. It will do this communicating on Twitter/Facebook with statuses that are originated by different variables (temperature of the water, weather, time and presence of people in the pool) to move people to do something.

Who's done what beforehand?

We can look at two different type of projects: digital companions/social robots and pool/acquariums measuring tools. My project is more a digital companion than a measuring tool as my focus is mostly on the user experience. It’s also halfway to be a social robot but it would need a little bit of artificial intelligence and learning capabilities. I took inspiration from a project named Brad the Toaster

Addicted products: The story of Brad the Toaster Other digital companions that I should consider while designing mine are: Jibo Readiymate Nabaztag . There is also the final project of Fiore Basile that implemented a digital companion for multiple purposes. For the “measuring tool” category there a lot of open source projects. However often they include expensive components and I don’t need to be so accurate for my purpose. Ph-Probe, pHDuino, Pool monitor, OpenSPA Monitor, PoolDuino.

From a theoretical point of view my project took inspiration from Affective Computing (for a definition MIT Media Lab page, a good overview is given by the Interaction Design Foundation and, of course, there is the book of Don Norman Emotional Design) and from gmaification and the Fun Theory

What materials and components will be required?

• PLA rolls (yellow and red or orange)
• all the components needed to make a Fabkit (BOM here)
• a waterproof temperature sensor. I’ll use a Dallas sensor DS18B20. It is
• a 3 axis accelerometer
• an RGB led
• a ESP8266 wireless module for communication and a voltage regulator, like the LM1117T-3.3  IC , as the chip works at 3,3V while I’m powering the board with 5V. I need also a logic level converter as the ESP communicates over serial.
• a rechargeable battery

Where will they come from?

• PLA: It’s already in the lab. However usually I buy it from the 3DItaly store in Rome. Link
• the components for the Fabkit and the accelerometer will come from Digikey.it
• the temperature sensor and the RGB led will come from my local store or from Digikey. The ESP8266 will come from Amazon

How much will it cost?

For the printed parts I still haven’t finished the 3D module so I cannot estimate the filament consumption. However I think more or less 10 euros.

• Fabkit costs around 10 €
• Dallas DS18B20 costs 3,40 €
• The transistors, the IC and the resistences for the voltage divider and the voltage regulator and other minor componentscost around 5€
• ESP8266 costs 7,90 euros
• the external battery 2600MAh costs 6,50 euros

Total is around 45 euros.

What parts and systems will be made?

Physical parts:

• the duck shaped case will be 3D printed
• the Fabkit will be milled and soldered
• A board will be designed, milled and soldered to implement the voltage regulator, the logic level shifter and connection with sensors and the RGB led

Software:

• the firmware for the Fabduino will be programmed using the Arduino IDE
• a webpage that act as a proxy to access public APIs like Yahoo weather and Twitter will be programmed in php

What processes will be used?

• 3D modelling and printing
• PCB design and production

What tasks need to be completed?

• Complete the design of the 3D model of the duck
• Print the duck
• Design the circuit and make the board as mentioned above
• Assembly the electronics
• Program the firmware and the proxy

What questions need to be answered?

The biggest problem is to make electronics safety work in a wet environment. Indeed the duck is meant to stay in a pool. Problems are related to insulation but also to interferences in the Wi-Fi communication as water can influence radio waves at 2.4 GHz. Another problem is related to power management. Electronics and code should be optimized to harvest energy to allow a longer duration of the battery. The most expensive part in terms of energy consumption is related to wireless communication. However the ESP8266 board could stay in sleep mode when not used.

What is the schedule?

• Week 18-24 of May model the duck and the board
• Week 25-31 of May print the duck and mill the board and start coding
• Week 31 May - 7 June finish the code and test the duck

How will it be evaluated?

The project has to be evaluated both from a functional and from an aestetic/user experience point of view. From a functional point of view the duck should be able to accomplish to the main functionalities and survive in a wet environment (has to float and be insulated). Regarding the affective/asestetic part as the duck should show a behavior posting status on Twitter I will make a test involving some users that will follow the duck’s Twitter profile