project development

sketches

blender

It all began with me designing the casing in Blender. I skeched out the silhouette that I then outlined, and started creating. As I am not very comfortable with mesh-based applications, I decided to find a tutorial on YouTube that would make a body similar to what I had in mind. In this case I had two options: a soap bar, and an Apple Magic Mouse. The tutorials on the soap bar shape of my choice were not abundant online, so my second option worked better.

blender to fusion

I faced some issues when switching from a mesh object to a solid body. As I wanted to make the case parametric, I though I could simply import the mesh into Fusion, and solidify. On the other hand, working with high poly object in Blender did not seem logical, especially when I had the idea to switch apps mid-design.

Similarly, while I feel more comfortable with parametric apps I am not advanced either. So, it was more difficult to achieve a more “organicly” shaped objects. Naturally, I was left to make something very basic.

Side note: there’s a difference between simple and basic.

fusion

As I wanted to have samples of the door meachnism, I focused on having a side cutout of the body.

printing samples

I first printed all the samples in PLA. This seemed to be more economical.

mechanical parts

servo to lever

servo motor

For the servo, I was suggested to use a metalic geared servo, instead of a plastic one. As the doors are unlatched using an in-place printed hooked-lever attached to a servo, I wanted to test the stiffness of it. And the lever is attached to the servo using some strong theard for in-water use.

Finally, to test the stiffness, I used the build-in Arduino <Servo.h> library, suggested by Maxime, one of my local instructors.. Just in case I checked an online blog [Instructables.com] before generating the code.

C++

#include <Servo.h>

Servo doorServo;  // Create a servo object to control the door

// Your custom adjusted angles (20 for closed, 120 for open)
const int CLOSED_POSITION = 20;   // Default position (Closed)
const int OPEN_POSITION = 150;    // Open position

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);            // Initialize serial communication at 9600 bps
  doorServo.attach(3);           // Connect the servo signal to digital pin 3

  doorServo.write(CLOSED_POSITION); // Set door to default closed position at startup

  // Print instructions to the Serial Monitor
  Serial.println("Door Control Ready!");
  Serial.println("Type 'O' to Open, 'C' to Close.");
}

void loop() {
  // Check if bytes are available to read from the serial port
  if (Serial.available() > 0) {
    char input = Serial.read();  // Read the incoming character

    // Check the command
    if (input == 'O' || input == 'o') {
      doorServo.write(OPEN_POSITION);
      Serial.println("Status: Opening door...");
    } 
    else if (input == 'C' || input == 'c') {
      doorServo.write(CLOSED_POSITION);
      Serial.println("Status: Closing door...");
    }
  }
}

*Prompt.F1

parachute

As I am aiming for precision, for the parachute I cut out a pattern on the lazer cutter, and used it to individually cute the thin nylon raincoat fabric. As the facbric is very thin, I did not risk cutting it on the laser cutter!

interface

*Prompt.F2

prompts

Prompt.F1 Write a basic Arduino Uno sketch that controls a hobby servo motor powered by an external power supply. The servo signal wire is connected to pin 3. The servo must operate via commands sent through IDE’s serial monitor [configured at 9600 baud with Newline line endings]. By default the servo is set to a closed position, but when I type in O the position should switch to Open, and C for Closed.

Prompt.F2 Generate an app…