Week 16: Applications and Implications
This Application and implication week is mainly for final project masterpiece that integrates the range of units covered. We are suppose to document and answer several questions about our own final project.
Final Project Background:
For the Fab Academy, I am working on Automatic Cross Walk Signal as the final project. This project is not a new idea nor I am working on new idea, as I just want my final project to be simple idea solving some local problem we are facing.
As my country is constantly under development, numbers of road user keeps on increasing despite the traffic controller. Details follow
What will it do?
Number of road users have increased so much in the towns and city, but still the traffic flows are managed by traffic personal or clearly on the understanding basis of the road users.
Image from: Google
The project I am working on will minimize the risk of accident at the cross road or pedestrain crossing point, checking the drawbacks of the other traffic light.
Though there is no clear written history about the traffic light in the country, about what we heard says that there was traffic light once. Due to low reliability as it function on timing basis or other drawbacks, it was soon disband after installation.
Though there is traffic light in the market, it is very hard to get as we required. So, for the century, traffic personal are the main traffic light controlling traffic in the country.
Image from: https://www.dailybhutan.com/article/making-highways-safer
My project will highly focused on pedestrain cross point, which will give priority to pedestrain for crossing which is one of the key rules at the junction in the country. But it will also check the unnecessary hindrance of the flow of traffic.
Who's done what beforehand?
Image from: Google
There are many traffic lights with different design as per their own requirement are already available in the market and almost all the countries in the world are using it to control traffic flows.
For the traffic light with the exact requirement in my country, me along with my bunch of friends are the first one trying to make it during our stay in FABLAB between 2017 August to 2019 February.
We worked under the command from the mayor of Thimpu City who was Mr.Kinley Dorjee at the time. Due to budget and time limitation, project couldn't proceed as planned.
So, my final project is also aimed at completing my long ago started project taking advantage of fabacademy.
What will you design?
This is my idea on the simple design. I am trying to keep it simple with advance functionality and exactly as per the requirement. Both side of the road will have human accessible sensor to trigger the cross walk sign. They should function with respect to each other in order to lessen the confusion.
Find the test video here
I am designing the human interface to trigger the signal in order to match the requirement. Sometimes the crosswalk point remains empty when there is no pedestrain who wish to cross the road, at that time I don't want to disturb the traffic flow which the timing traffic light does.
I am also considering about pedestrain keeps on disturbing the road when there is more people wanting to cross the road.
About the road signal, I am going to use signal light on only one side of the road, but clearly visible for the road users.
What materials and components will be used?
| Sl.No | Items | Quantity | Source | Approx. Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ESP32-WROOM-32 | 2 | Fab Inventory | Nu.920 |
| 2 | Ultrasonic sensor | 2 | Fab Inventory | Nu.525 |
| 3 | LED Big(Red, Green, Blue) | 1 each | Amazon.in | Rs.150 |
| 4 | Resistors | 6 | Lab Inventory | Nu.30 |
| 5 | Capacitors | 4 | Lab Inventory | Nu.30 |
| 6 | Jumpers | As per required | Fab Inventory | Nu.50 |
| 7 | 8mm plank/ply | 1 sheet | Local Sawmills | Nu.1000 |
| 8 | Small Buzzer | 2 | Amazon.in | Rs.100 |
| 9 | 7 segment 4 digit led | 2 | Amazon.in | Rs.460 |
| 10 | Miscellaneous | Fab Inventory | Nu.500 |
What parts and systems will be made?
As I just procure component modules and parts, everything needs to be fabricated including the main control boards.
Fabrication of circuitry and structure building are main things which I need to do for this project.
- Some important lists required to do are:
- Fabrication of Controller boards of ESP32-wroom
- Interfacing of input and output with controller
- Communication linking between controller boards
- Developing of the structures
What processes will be used?
| Sl.No | Particular | Process |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fabricating the main controller board from ESP32-WROOM-32 | PCB milling machine |
| 2 | Casing for the controller and LEDs | 3D printing |
| 3 | Making road and structures of the project. | CNC machine and laser cutters |
| 4 | Stickers and signs making for the road | Vinyl cutter |
| 5 | Soldering of components and making the circuitry | Soldering & Wiring |
What questions need to be answered?
- What motivates you for this project?
- This is the project that I had chance to do long time ago, but due to circumstances, we failed to carry out.
- Taking advantages of Fab Academy, I really wanted to do something that could be helpful for my society rather than making something fancy.
- How well can your project be in real field?
- Even in real field, it will be well functioning despite we need to change few components like LED for traffic sign, which will not be visible. For that we even need to use relay to switch high power rather than MOSFET.
- How sure are you that you can complete your project on time?
- For this I am confident enough that I will complete on time, as I have already completed with most of circuitry work and program coding. Major work left with physical structure only.
- What are the future scope for your project?
- We can add counter to count the number of vehicles that travels per day to assume approximate number of cars in the city or town.
- We can even integrate the environmental sensor to monitor the air quality in vacinity.
- There is even the scope where we can make them powered by solar rather than electricity.
How will it be evaluated?
This project, I kept it simple and effective. It should be good enough fulfilling the purpose and considering some drawbacks. Though this is just the prototype, my reseach should be good enough to fabricate for the real field application.
Fabrication cost should be minimum as possible in order to be affordable.
