Rachel Legerski - Fab Academy 2015

Project Development

Assignment

The assignment for this week is to complete your final project, tracking your progress:

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

What has worked? What hasn't?

What questions need to be resolved?

What will happen when?

What have you learned?

Remember to work on documentation during development!

Address demand- vs supply-side time management

Spiral development

This is a little exciting for me because I am beginning to actually see my project take shape.

Struggles

This is crazy but I finally understand about the importance of documentation during development. I wish I had understood this sooner. The hardest part of this class is trying to go back and find the documentation I need for each assignment. It took me many weeks to learn to write code for the documentation. I did not use a commercial template which made things so much more difficult.

Persistence and Success

June 3rd:

Designed frame in Corel Draw:

• The first frame didn't cut all the way through. I made adjustments to the laser settings and was able to get it to cut my carboard. The settings I settled on were 13/100/5000 for the cutting and 50/100/5000 for the scoring.
• I assembled the frame using brad fasteners (sometimes called brass fasteners).
• I created the Cleveland skyline using a jpeg image and imported it to Corel Draw. I cut it on the Roland Vinyl Cutter.



June 5th:

• Designed a simple clear, acrylic front for my picture using Corel Draw. I am trying to use Corel Draw as often as I can because this is a program that my school is purchasing for use in our lab.
• After creating that and cutting it. I decided to follow Neil's advice to laser in an image of the moon and use an LED to create a glow.
• I soldered a 9v battery to a strip of Supernight LEDs.
• I assembled my prototype to see how it looked.







• I created the art work for the frame. Initially I experimented with poking holes into the canvas to see how the size of the hole affected the output of light. Next time, I plan on using the laser cutter to create the holes to match up to the board.
• I assembled the picture with the artwork inside the frame.
• The twinkling stars can be seen whether or not the room is dark, but the glowing moon can only be seen in a dimly lit room.
• I am very happy with my project. It suits my needs and I have learned so many things since January.
• The biggest success for me is that I was able to finish this program. This is the hardest class I have ever taken. I can came in not even knowing what a Fab Lab was with no computer experience, no electronic experience and knowing next to nothing about writing code. I have truly grown!





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Materials List for Final Project

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1. white/yellow LEDs--10
2. ATTiny 44--1
3. capacitor--1
4. 499 resistor--4
5. 1k resistor--1
6. 10k resistor--2
7. 2 pin connectors--2
8. 4 pin connector--1
9. 6 pin connector--1
10. cardboard for frame
11. fasteners for frame (brad or brass)
12. acrylic for picture frame
13. black vinyl for Cleveland skyline
14. a strip of outdoor LEDs (my strip has 15 LEDs)
15. battery holders with wire connectors that can be soldered-2
16. push button-1
17. 9v battery-2
18. FTDI and ISP for programming

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Project Files:

• Corel Draw Frame File - frame.cdr
• Design File for Frame - frame1.dwg
• Design File for light board - charlieboard.brd
• Code for twinkling lights - blinkcode.c
• Moon Image for etching - moonetching.cdr
• Corel Draw Cleveland Skyline- skylinegraphic.cdr

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