Entries - Tag = final

Building and Materials

After collecting resources from the workshop room, including the wooden hand, wires to move it, servos and pulleys I started building the final product. Working off the feedback from the prototype the goal is to make a more sturdy hand where the fingers can move freely and be positioned in any way I wish. The wooden hand has stiffer joints which enable the fingers to stay in almost any position which should come in handy for that. With all the wires attached to the fingers however, it is clear that they will not pull themselves back up like the elasticity that was in the cardboard hands so wires will also be needed at the back to pull the fingers back up. Additionally wires will be attached to the wrist and back to the servos to move the hand, and need space to rotate and move around in order to properly pull the strings.

As you can see below, I made a huge mess with all the materials and building, where most of which was done by trying to solve a problem using trial and error. Building using odds and ends I found at home, I used a plastic container for the arm which turned out to be quite sturdy, but needed to drill holes into the top and sides to attach the servos in so they could rotate it. A servo was attached to the wrist and the hand was pulled off the of the arm it was attached to in order to attach the wrist servo to the base of the hand.

Putting it together

The foam base from the prototype worked very well and the servo was placed inside the plastic container for the next stage where all servos were in place. Another box was used as the container for all the wires and Arduino back end to put it all together and out of sight. With the physical components set up, the next stage was to connect all the wires on the hand to the servos, code the Arduino components then attach it all to the box and battery to make sure the hand stays where it is while getting powered to move and perform gestures.

With everything in place the wires were loose to not stretch themselves out of place before the exhibition while getting all other parts in place. Glue and lots of tape was used to keep the hand in place, all weight resting on the arm servo as the hand will have to move independently to wave, thus not resting its weight on the base of the arm at all. The two distance sensors were placed outside the box facing forwards, offering a simple method to see from which direction people would approach the concept, then the arm would rotate to face the side from which they approach. This was done easily by comparing the distances at each and then using the distance of the side which was closer, and then the action relevant to the distance detected would be performed.

After all the time and effort payed off, the final product was finished and worked decently well, however the battery runs out very quick and when I attached the hand it turned out to be very difficult for the servos in the wrist and arm to rotate. I am quite happy with the look of the final product and believe that it works quite well for the intended concept, and if it wasn't too heavy it could have been a successful design.

The final week have come and gone, and we all made it through to the end. In the last days leading up to the exhibition, we revisited our team reflection one last time before handing it in and tested to see if our prototypes worked one last time after having merged our codebases. Finally, it worked to send messages to each other with all code merged! Although my prototype still was broken, we were able to show off our combined effort at the trade show.

As for the tradeshow, at first, we did not get many visitors, so we had an extended chat with Ben before Matt later arrived. Marie mostly held the presentations as her ball was one of the more reliable ones in terms of sending information to the others, whereas Tuva's worked half of the time and Thomas' broke midway through. Thomas was able to fix his again for the rest of the exhibition though. Later on, we had a flock of visitors who wanted to check out our concept, which was nice, and we did receive a lot of positive feedback. It was also nice to see how some of the other projects ended up and peoples' creativity in finding a way to prototype their concepts. All in all, it was a great ending to a long and exhausting semester, so I'm glad we can put that behind us and keep focusing on the thesis.

I didn't really receive any feedback on my portfolio, except from within my team. Seeing some of the other portfolios I decided that my time would be better spent working on the thesis rather than fine-tuning a few more things on the website, as it is rather good already.

Thank you to all for a good semester!

After Critiques

After all the responses from the critiques on the Miro board and lots of good feedback and inspiration from seeing everyone else's designs I went into the studio on Friday and picked up the new and improved wooden hand that I want to use in my final version of this concept. In the workshop I also wired the strings through the finger joints in hopes this will better pull them down and back up from behind, operating just like tendons do in our real meat hands.

Along with the hand, I got stronger and larger servo motors that should better rotate and pull the strings a full 360 degrees this time to properly operate the strings in order for the fingers to move better than in the prototype. These came along with disks on top which will hopefully be able to run the threads through on tracks in order to pull the strings which moves the fingers a larger amount.

Sadly this was all the physical work I could do this week as I was otherwise very busy with other INFS subjects and finalizing work for them. Next week I hope to further complete this final build, making the hands look better with some other design work, hooking all the strings and wires up to the servos and building a sturdy base for the whole build so it is secure and can be fitted on a desk in a easy casing with a sturdy base.

Further Development of Emily

In complete honesty, the past two weeks have been quite slow. I lacked motivation towards this subject as other subject assessment has been quite heavy, and after completing the big hurdle of the first prototype, it has been hard to get back into it. However something that I have been enjoying relating to this course is the development of the portfolio. I love design and so being able to design my own website starting from scratch has been quite fun and definitely a refresher from the last time I developed my own website (which was many years ago!) There have been times when I've gotten frustrated with trying to further implement the final aspects for Emily so being able to resort to a less stressful task like building the portfolio has been a nice escape.

Works In Progress

The portfolio is mostly completed, I just need to incorporate the final images and description of Emily once she is all done, and then upload all the files to the hosting exhibit site. I'm am still working on implementing the feedback stage but I am very close to having it completed. We did receive feedback and results from the initial prototype, and I have taken on the feedback that Lorna has provided which includes the following:

• Playing around with the beep more
• Considering other ways the user can calm Emily

Depending on time left, I will see what I can do with this feedback and whether there is any possibility in implementing these. I feel that there is very little time for me to find a new source of sound to incorporate into Emily although I may see what I can do with the changing frequencies of the pitch of the Piezo element. However, regarding exploring other ways for the user to interact, I am thinking that ideas including continuous tapping of Emily or movement of the user could be ways in which the user can interact with Emily, should she get more annoying.

If I'm unable to implement such ideas however, these will definitely be considerations that I will outline were I to have access to unlimited time and resources.

Finalising The Form

I have actually gained inspiration from team Cabitat in 2019 on the form of their project 'I'm Home'. I was wanting to have a translucent form that allowed the Neopixel lights to glow through and their form did that and looked very polished and clean (see below in Inspiration Works for their form).

I did also do research on existing smart home devices and found that products such as Alexa and Google Home maintain a minimalist and polished style. I felt that I wanted a polished look for Emily that would appeal to my target audience of adult users and look aesthetically pleasing within the home. The idea was that if I couldn't find anything then I would try to attempt the idea of making paper translucent to create a dome, that I took inspiration from in my last post.

I decided to go online and explore the possibility of finding an already existing solid material or shape that I could use to encapsulate the Neopixel strip. To my luck, Bunnings appeared to have a translucent white pot that suited the aesthetic of what I am going for perfectly. I have a perfectly sized square box that will be situated under the translucent pot, which will hide the Arduino and majority of wires, in order to develop that polished and clean look that I am going for.

Future Progress

What's left to do is to complete the feedback part of Emily and if time is kind, implement some of the feedback listed above. Once that's all done I'm able to upload images and videos of the final form of Emily for the portfolio. I am feeling extremely nervous about the upcoming exhibit but am looking forward to seeing all the varying projects!

Inspiration Works

I'm Home - by Team Cabitat

Photo taken from Max Cartwright Portfolio - http://deco3850-portfolio.uqcloud.net/2019/mcartwright/process.html