Final Project

As mentioned in Week 01 assignment, I am planning to make a musical box featuring photo-screening function through a projector.
It is a stuff that I have planned long time ago, since way before I joined Singapore Polytechnic FabLab team. Personally, I like both music and drawing. Hence, I am thinking of design a personalized music box that allows me to screen through all my drawings since young age.
When started to learn all the theory behind to make my dream comes through, it’s getting harder for me to achieve because of:
1) I am not good in Electrical and Electronic Engineering; therefore, all those components and connections are tough for me to start up.
2) I am not sure what are the recommended components to be equipped with my design.
It is a pleasure that I have this opportunity to be part of the FabLab team and learn all the possible skills and knowledge to be able to “Make (Almost) Anything”.

This week I started to think of the possible components that helps me to achieve my dream product:
• Self-made musical box components.
• A mini projector that flashes montage/photo slides, together with the screen.
• A 3D-printed enclosure.
• Respective electronic components that share signal between the musical structure and the projector system.
Based on the above listing, it seems to be difficult to pack all the parts/components into the tiny egg shell. So, I switched the enclosure design to a DIY box house, at least it gives a larger space internally for me to store my components.
I started to familiarize Fusion360 3D design software and generate a simple house structure without any confirmed dimensions using parametric concept. This method can largely reduce my modifying process time.

During one afternoon, when I am having lunch with my colleagues (all went though Fab Academy course), they are curious on what my partner, Florimond and my final projects are to do. When I briefly describe on mine own project, they seem to be interested and provide suggestion and ideas to me on each part of my design.
One interesting part was the photo screening function. My initial thinking was to in-build a mini projector and paired with a magnifying lens to shine out the montage/photos. But my guts feeling tells me that I might be struggling on tagging these components while doing my project. One of my instructors, Mr. Willie Tay suggested to clear film with printed image on it then shone out by a light beam. To make it more interesting, there will be a rotating plate with a series of photos onto it.
Given a certain interval, the plate will rotate when the musical box is playing, and different photos will be shown through the magnifying lens and project to the external surface. Just like this:

I find that this idea is much more feasible do handle compare to the initial idea. All thanks to the lunch meet up with my colleagues, who has contributed quite a number of ideas for my final project.

This week I learnt about embedded programming. Generally, I need to decide what micro-controller incorporate with the programming to use for my final project. Since I am totally new to this field, I will pick the combination that most of my colleagues has proposed/used before to master it (at least enough to complete my final project).
In the end I have decided to use SEEED XIAO RP2040 micro-controller with Arduino programming. From here, I need to plan how many functions that my final project required, in order to make sure that there are sufficient input pins for me to use.
After discussed with Mr. Steven Chew, I need to have 3 different functions for my final project:
1) Playing music – Either old-kind using drum and pins or playing song tracks through external media;
2) Photo-screen function – Torch light projector (kids’ toy, which mentioned in previous week);
3) Lighting effect of my musical box – Either internal lighting effect, or external lighting effect, or apply both into my final project.
Based on the above-mentioned suggestion, I will have a more realistic picture on how my final project will be look like.

You should probably check out her work