WEEK 18: Project development
And finally, the last week!!
This week consisted of completing the final project until its end.
The assignment for this week, was to track the progress, answering the following questions:
- what tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?
- what's working? what's not?
- what questions need to be resolved?
- what will happen when?
- what have you learned?
So let's do it!:
What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?
At this point, most of the basic tasks are completed, such as:
- concept, ideation and design
- 3d design
- electronics design
- electronics production (PCB milling, soldering, electronics assembly)
- 3d printing
- CNC machining
- assembly
- programming
Basically, the tasks that are remaining are about programming. For example:
- make more blinking modes of the light
- adjust the intervals of the parameters and values measured to match the different blinking modes
- send data to a database in a server
- improve the interface of the webserver embeded in the microcontroller
What's working? what's not?
The lamp, in general therms is working. The things remaining to improve are, as I pointed before:
- make more blinking modes of the light
- adjust the intervals of the parameters and values measured to match the different blinking modes
- send data to a database in a server
- improve the interface of the webserver embeded in the microcontroller
What questions need to be resolved?
The basic questions that need to be resolved are:
- how many modes of blinking should there be?
- how to send data to a sever and how to storage the data there?
- what kind of server should I use? raspberry pi? cloud server?
What will happen when?
The basic things that need to be working for the presentation, are working. From that moment on, I'll try to resolve the other questions.
The idea, is to take advantage while I have access to the lab and to the instructors, and try to solve all que questions remaining. I'll try to do that before end of june.
So, after documenting everything, I'll start working on the server comunication, blinking modes and the interface, to have the lamp fully ready before July.
What have you learned?
During the whole FabAcademy I learned lots of new things. For example I've never made a PCB or I've never programmed anything, but now I feel capable of (almost) anything.
To sum up what I've learned with the final project, I would say:
- machining aluminum is not easy with a standard CNC machine that is thought for softer materials. You have to go slow, and what worked for me so well was to lube constantly the endmill.
- the tolerances are so important when you have to assembly parts together, specially if they come from different processes.
- 3d printing can give better results than what I was expecting.
- it's so important to check the datasheet of any component so well before designing the electronics. I had troubles with some pins of the microcontroller that were not supposed to be connected in order to flash it.
- I should learn better some programation languages, such as C or python, this is the field in what I feel less confident.
Planning:
I've planned the last two weeks in order to meet the deadline.
It went quite well so far, except for the aluminum machining, that took a lot more time than expected.
