Final Project¶
Project Sketch¶
I want to create an interactive activity where LEDs light up in white in a certain shape, and the user has to draw the same shape. This will be done using touch sensors at specific points. When each touch sensor is pressed, the LED color will change to green. If the wrong LED’s touch sensor is pressed, the LED will blink red and the screen will say incorrect. In a way, it will be like interactive Connect the Dots. If you make contact with each dot necessary to complete the shape, the small screen in the corner will say correct. If you do not do it correctly, you will get another chance. This will continue until you get the shape correct. This project will be designed to help children learn how to write numbers and letters.
Designing Project in Fusion 360¶
I chose to design my final project in Fusion 360 because I have some prior experience from previous engineering classes and from watching and doing around most of Kevin Kennedy’s Learn Fusion 360 in 30 Days YouTube tutorials. They were very helpful, and I was very grateful to have done them.
First, I needed to design the inner part of my project that houses the LEDs, touch, sensors, and the main area where the user writes. I started by making the outisde of this inner housing. I made a sketch on the bottom plane in the shape of a square, extruded it, made a sketch on top of it, and then extruded a hole into to make it hollow. Using parameters was very, very important, and I used parameters in most, if not all, of my dimensions. Parameters allow dimensions to be stored in essentially variables, so if you change the value, it changes the value in all the places that variable is used. For example, I used the parameter board_height to set the height of the board. Later, when I finished the project, I was able to go back and change the height of the board easily by changing the value of the parameter in just one place.
This is the initial sketch for the inner part of my project:
This is the sketch for adding the rim before extruding the box, making it hollow:
This is the outer part of my project with the start of the area that holds the screen: 
This is the sketch for the outer part: 
This is the sketch of the screen: 
For each part of the project, I made sure to make a new component. Making new components was helpful when changing the appearance and keeping the design organized.
This is the finished outer part of my project with the appearance changed. 
Next, I had to create the holder for my LED matrix. I made another new component to do this, but it was nested under the inner housing component. When adjusting the height of the LED holder, I learned that you need to select move bodies or it will just pull the face up. I struggled for a little bit trying to figure out why it kept stretching my LED holder up instead of moving the whole thing.
I then asked ChatGPT what size LED it would recommend, and it said 5 mm, so my next goal was to create a matrix of 5 mm circles evenly spaced out on the LED holder. This task turned out to be a lot harder than I initially expected because I could not figure out how to evenly space the circles throughout the square. The first thing I tried was creating a circle in the top right corner of the square and then using a rectangular pattern to spread them out the distance of the square. I also had to figure out how to change the direction of the patetrn so that the circles appeared in the square. I had to select the top edge and the left edge of the square I believe to make this happen.
I quickly figured out how to make the circles evenly spaced away from each other, but the issue was making them evenly spaced away from the edges of the square.
I asked ChatGPT how it recommended I go about spacing the circles in a 6 x 6 pattern evenly, and it recommended that I start with a circle in the center of the square and use the symmetry rectangular pattern tool. This idea made sense to me, so I tried to do it this way.
While I was in the process of doing this, I must have hit some random keyboard shortcut because my entire design turned white and looked very unusual.
I was very confused and tried to undo, but it was not working, so I consulted with ChatGPT. I eventually discovered that the error was that I had switched the display settings to wireframe. All I had to do once diagnosing the problem was change the Visual Style setting back to Shaded.
Once I got the display back to normal coloring, I continued trying to use symmetry to create the circle matrix, but the issue was one side was different from the other side, and it was not symmetric. The issue was that Symmetry for Rectangular Pattern does not work for even numbers. I was trying to make a 6x6 matrix, which was not possible to be made symmetric if you start with a circle in the center. I discovered this through testing different numbers, and 7x7 and 5x5 ended up being spaced evenly exactly how I wanted my 6x6 matrix to look. I eventually got my pattern to work using construction lines and equal constraints, which I had learned about in one of Kevin Kennedy’s videos.
After my 6x6 matrix was finished, I had to extrude the circles. As I was about to do this, I realized that my matrix of circles was actually just a matrix of points, and I had accidentally made a rectangular pattern of the centers of the circles instead of the circles themselves. Luckily, the process was much easier the second time. After my successful matrix of 5 mm circles (5 mm was also set as a parameter in case I decide to change it later) was finished, I was finally able to extrude the circles to make holes for the LEDs. This was the dimension I used for the spacing between each circle: ( Inner_Board_Width - InnerRim * 2 ) / 6.
Next, I realized I needed some sort of groove so that the LED holder would be able to fit in the box and not be all the way at the bottom. I made a sketch on one of the inner walls of the box and made a rectangle, extruded it, and then mirrored that to the other three sides. This is the groove on one side of the box before I mirrored it:
I had to create midplanes to mirror the groove. Creating a midplane is an option from the Construct menu and I had to create two midplanes, so they intersected perpendicularly. I also had to create one diagonal plane that split the box in half diagonally. To do this, I used the Plane Through Two Edges tool under the Construct menu.
I also wanted to change the LED holder height to be adjustable using a parameter, so I used the Move tool and Translate to set the height:
This is the LED holder adjusted into the LED holder groove:
I then created an Offset Plane off the top of the LED holder and set the distance away to be half the parameter I made for the height of the LED because I may change the LED size later, and I wanted it to be easily adjustable. I made it hald so I could mirror over that plane.
I looked back and realized that my sketch for the groove was not fully constrained, so I hadf to go back and fix it.
Next, I had to design the holder for my touch sensors. I copied the LED component I had and used Paste New under my Housing component to duplicate the LED holder for my Touch Sensor Holder. I wanted to keep the LED holes in my Touch sensor holder, so the LEDs light does not get blocked, but I needed to add another hole next to each LED hole for the wiring of the touch sensors. I repeated the Rectangular Pattern steps, Construction Lines, and Equal Constraints that I had to do for the LED holes and quickly added another set of holes for the wiring.
The last thing I needed to do was add the semi-transparent top to my project design. I initiall tried to create a new component to do this, but I could not get the constraints to be completed in the new sketch, so I made the top in the Housing component instead. I got the sketch to work first try and then extruded my rectangle by -1 mm and changed the appearance to a mostly clear light blue glass.
Final Design Pictures¶
Timeline Video¶
Final without LED holder, touch sensor holder, or top:
Final with only LED holder:
Final:
All Parameters Used:
Materials¶
Touch Sensor¶
While brainstorming touch sensors, I came across this video, which I found very interesting because they made touch sensors out of common materials. I do not know if this woulf be the most practical for my final project though, but it could be a potential option if I can figure out how to make that work.
Another option I explored was this touch sensor that I found on Amazon for a relatively inexpensive price. If I chose this option, it would make it so that I would have a different touch sensor for every spot in the grid, which is a possibility.