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Week 19: Invention, Intellectual Property, and Income

Our assignment:

Project Development: 1. Develop a plan for dissemination of your final project 2. Complete your final project tracking your progress: what tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain? what's working? what's not? what questions need to be resolved? what will happen when? what have you learned?

Final Project Dissemination

My final project is intended for my personal use and learning. I have been most interested in the process and learning all that I can so I have no intention of taking it further. This will not be a commercial product or patented.

Since I started this as a complete beginner, I'd like to continue learning and practicing with electronics and making things with what I have access to back home. I hope my participation in Fab Academy encourages others like me to learn and develop these skills. I have benefited and learned from engineers, students, hobbyists, and more taking the time to document and share what they learned. So if there's anything my work could do to be useful in someone else's learning I want it to be open and available.

With this in mind, I will share my documentation, design files and bill of materials on my archived FAB Academy site with the hopes that it encourages other older-in-life beginnners to have encouragement to learn.

I found out on Nadieh's website about the Creative Commons' CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license which allows for freedom to share and adapt the material as long as there is attribution, noncommercial use, and same license usage for building on the material ("ShareAlike").

I will share my final project under this CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons license.

Final Project Tracking

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?*

I've been tracking on my final project page my checklist of tasks which I'll share current status below:

April 30th

Finalize idea + sketch

Create workplan

Sketch systems diagram

Place Digikey order for needed components

Complete Midterm Review - tasks completed

May 6th

Update electronics schematic

Complete initial electronics circuit testing

Document and design systems integration

Create initial design on Fusion 360 and export to Inkscape for lasercutting cardboard prototype

Test audio circuitry

May 13th

Finish next draft of 3D design on Fusion (esp the 3D printed internal layer)

3D print prototype and laser cut cardboard prototype of actual size of front and back panels

design enclosures for batteries and circuit boards >> rethinking design

design PCBs for project on KiCad

develop most basic code that demonstrates all components working on breadboard

May 20th

Mill PCBs

solder and stuff PCBs with components

initial wire management placement (using crimped cables, etc)

test and debug most basic code on current circuit

May 27th

Mill next iteration of PCBs

solder and stuff updated PCBs with components (have one more new iteration of the board)

develop more advanced working code for updated project

3D print accessory pieces (button faces)

laser cut and engrave final panels on plywood

3D print final inner panel

mount, fixure, and secure all components inside >> pass shake/drop test

add decorative touches

June 3rd

Create final project slide deck

Create final project video

Finalize final project webpage

What's working? what's not? I have spent most of my time so far in electronics design and production. This has taken MUCH more time than I thought. I went though many iterations and have been working to edit and hone in my idea from having too many ideas into something more manageable. I've figured out a good way to integrate the different operations of the device making full use of the XIAO ESP32-C3 board's capabilities.

I have made countless errors along the way but I have learned from the mistakes. One decision I made was to switch one of my input sensors from a magnometer breakout board to using an accelerometer chip so that my device could respond to motion while using the sound outputs. The magnotometer code was difficult to work through to get what I needed and also it constrained the design because the magnetic field is impacted when too close to the sensor.

After working through systems integration challenges, I did consolidate my original idea to have 6 different circuit boards. I also like how I am integrating the 3D printing for the inner wall of the enclosure which looks cool with the Neopixel strip and the front and back panels of the device using subtractive manufacturing.

For this last week or so of working on the project, I must stick to strict time management and "not be a hero" while also upholding the standards and requirements for completion.

What questions need to be resolved?

What about the design can be modified to improve the project now that I have decided not to use the magnotometer?

What are best practices for designing a device that can be both handheld and needs sturdiness to hold speaker and batteries that are a bit on the heavier and bulky side?

How do I best manage the timing and responsiveness of the code with interfacing the components at once?

How sensitive or not sensitive will I need to adjust the accelerometer so that there are not false detections?

What will happen when? I am presenting my final project on Wednesday, June 10th. I will need to complete unfinished tasks from my weekly tasks/plan list. I am writing this on the morning of Monday, June 1st so I'll share my timeline from now (and documenting as I go):

Monday - June 1st

  • Complete and push remaining documentation: revisions for Week 16, and Week 18 and Week 19 assignments.

  • Solder and stuff main board version 2

  • Assemble PCBs/wiring (ready for code testing)

  • Update CAD for overall device enclosures. Start any 3D prints.

Tuesday - June 2nd

  • Laser cut back and front panels for prototyping. Revise update CAD for device.

  • Ensure components work with basic code. Make electronics design tweaks accordingly

Wednesday - June 3rd

  • Complete CNC milling and laser cutting for enclosure. Sand wood.

  • complete 3D printing for inner wall

Thursday - June 4th

  • Coding day! - develop more advanced code for the final project

Friday - June 5th

  • 3D print accessory pieces

  • Mount, fixure, and secure all components inside

Saturday - June 6th

  • create final project slide deck

  • complete documentation for final project webpage

Sunday - June 7th

  • Create final project video

Monday and Tuesday I will use for adding any finishing touches as needed.

What have you learned?

I've learned that as maddening as it can be, I really love the electronics design, production, and programming side of things. I've learned to appreciate a good and thorough datasheet and how to read those to make circuits in KiCad. It's humbling to experience all the possible ways from big to small that can go wrong. And the patience required to debug and the accomplishment when you finally figure it out.

I've gone from a very abstract understanding to how things work, to being able to examine boards in everyday electronics and identify capacitors and resistors and get a sense of how things work.