Week 18: Invention,
Intellectual Property, & Income
Project Development
What tasks have been completed?
The 4 unique tiles have been 3D printed and magnets have been press-fit. The PCB boards have been milled and soldered, and programmed.
What Tasks Remain?
Making the wooden case for the board and laser etching the board top. Fitting all of the elements in the enclosure.
What has worked? What hasn't?
The code is working really well, especially after caching the images so they load much faster on the web interface. What hasn't worked is my different attempts of extending the input capabilities of the ESP32S3. The multiplexer failed as it would only send an all sensors on or all off reading when even just a single magnet was present. I have currently modified the plan to create a mini 2-tile board as a proof of concept.
What questions need to be resloved?
I am considering whether I should try to use a bigger microcomputer now or focus on finshing the project to its completion so that it illustrates my understanding of all of the techniques in FabAcademy even if it means a smaller play area for the proof of concept.
What will happen when?
I will create the enclosure based on the two-tile layout and begin the video editing and narration of my final video over the next 2 days. The last task will be using the images to generate the one page project slide.
What have you learned?
This makes me appreciate the consumer toys and devises on the market, how much development goes into those products and how even if you are using affordable components, the cost of materials gets pretty substantial for a final product especially if you want it to be affordable to consumers even after the markup. I also appreciated the chance to learn new programming skills and circuit design skills as well as the opportunity to use many tools I was already familiar with more creatively.
Dissemination Plan
I will storyboard the video to identify key images and video I need to capture to describe the whole process visually. I will then write a script that narrates via a voiceover the key details and highlights of each step of the process and the concept of the project. I will lay out the video assets in the sequence in imovie and clip the video and audio voiceovers to correlate appropriatly. I will also use the photos I selected to create the one page slide that highlights the whole timeline of the process to build the final project.
Future Possibilities
Version 2: I will continue to develop the project, replacing the ESP32S3 with a larger mircocomputer with more inputs so I can increase the board size to a minimum of 3x3 tiles - but ideally a 4x4 tiled board.
Version 3: I would also like to develop a library of vector elements that can be dragged and dropped into the digital floorplan environment to unlock new ways to design and interact.
Version 4: I would then create different 2D and 3D tile designs for role-playing and other fantasy games. The ability to "save" a build digitally and the location of elements on screen to replicate in the physical board for games that span multiple sessions.
Version 5: AR/VR integration to overlay the digital design elements on the physical elements on the board.
In order to achieve each of these additional versions and milestones - I will collaborate with other makers to contine development on the project with the intent of creating a small batch of product and later licensing the design to an existing toy/gaming manufacturer.
Copyright 2024 Thomas Pupo - Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial
Source code hosted at fabcloud/fabacademy/2024/thomas-pupo