Work Done

It’s the final week! I feel like I have so much I could still be working on for my project but I need to focus on what we spoke about in our studio this week: "If you had a magic wand and could wave it over your project, what would you want it to do?". My response to this question was, "that Emily knows when the air conditioner or heater is on, make the logic for acceptable temperatures a lot easier". A lot of the feedback I got on the Miro board and in person testing was that users were concerned about how the temperature was deemed inefficient. To be honest, I had been putting this off for a while but as this is the main data being collected to effect Emily's outputs, I know it needed to be well thought out. I did some research into what the government have suggested as the ideal temperature and decided that this relied a lot on knowing if an appliance was on. I decided I should add more to my simulation aspects (the outdoor temperature dial) and add two switches to simulate turning on and off the air conditioner. I spent a bit of time making a laser cut box for this too and I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Earlier this week I had some technical difficulties with my prototype.. I was putting it all together to take some photos to give to the media team, and the whole prototype stopped working. I was very stressed as the exhibit was coming up in less than a week and started panicking. I pulled everything off the board (thanking myself that I used connectors instead of soldering everything directly onto the board) and testing each component one by one. I ended up figuring out that the problem was that there wasn't enough power supplied to power all the different components. I did some research and spoke to some of my friends who are much more experienced in electronics and they suggested that I bypass the on-board power regulator and power externally using a 5V supply directly from a USB power supply. They also suggested I use a power shifter to convert the 5V back down to 3.3V that the board required. This fixed everything and I was so excited when it all started working again! This was a massive relief but also pushed back all my work by a few days as I did have to unsolder and then solder a few components. I decided to not get too stressed and just focus on getting through the next week, even though it did end up with a few nights finishing at 6am… I definitely learnt from this experience how important it is to put the extra time into making good connectors so that I can pull everything off the board if I need to.

I've found that the touch pins aren't as reliable as I expected so I decided to change them to buttons. Although this doesn't have the same feeling of holding Emily's arms as though you are working as a team to save the environment, I still think it will work well for the target user group. It is still easily understood by all age groups and difficult enough to be annoying but easy enough to integrate into their everyday lives. Overall, I don't think this change will have a large effect on the interaction with Emily.

I'm mostly very excited for the exhibit! I am a little unsure of what to expect and hope I don't get asked too many difficult questions but I'm trying to stay positive! I know we're all in a very uncertain time and I think everyone will be feeling a similar way. I'm really glad I'll have my team there with me in case anything goes wrong!

Work To Do

It's now Sunday and I'm pretty happy with what I have been able to achieve! I just have a few final things to finish and then I can put everything together! I have all the components mostly working when they should but I do have a bit more programming to do to ensure she advances her state when she is meant to.

I have finished the template for my website and mostly filled in the content. I just have to record some videos and finish up the portfolio once the prototype is completed. I kind of wished I left more time between finishing the prototype and submitting the portfolio but I think I've done the best I could have with all the other assessment I've had on! My website can be seen at https://ixd-2020.uqcloud.net/davidson/