Category: Projects

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Project Post #1

Lauren Frecka 3/7/17 Post

  • Lauren accomplished:
    • received prototype jacket in the mail
    • el panel from adafruit is on its way
    • Super exciting– got an email back from Lunabrite and they are sending me a discounted sample pack for $15! Really excited to get the product in the mail
    • began sketching different design options
  • A description of problems encountered and outstanding issues:
    • began to get a bit frustrated and overwhelmed with the sketches since there are so many different designs I could potentially do
  • A plan for the next week of work:
    • Work with prototype jacket– rip it, study seams, etc.
    • Get help on how to connect a light sensor to the el panel when I get it in the mail
    • Start designing a pattern/design on Illustrator for the laser cutter. (Might need help when I get to the Illustrator part)
    • Find out what textiles will work best for all parts of my project and begin to buy them
    • pick a name to call the jacket

http://lunabrite.com

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Muscle jet-Post #1

  1. Data Processing

with a very simple EMG system the force was recorded from my right arm lifting a weight.

initially raw data:

next step in to make all values positive:

Finally using different types of filters the data was smoothed out:

 

  1. The leap time for the EMG sensor is 1 +1/2 months, so I’m looking in to local solutions in the mean time I borrowed some lab equipment from a friend.
  2. Next week the fiber optic will be here and I’ll start doing some test with it
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Computer Aided Disappointment (CAD)

  • Last week
    • I have successfully built many CADs and worked with others to design images for the heel components. Unfortunately, none of them are correct or complete. Things I have done to improve my skills on the software include completing many of the TinkerCAD tutorials, as well as watching many YouTube videos on SketchUp. I find that bouncing between platforms has helped me to learn them faster, yet I am still not great at either. I have also recruited help, but unfortunately the images are still not what they need to be.
  • This week
    • Tuesday: Continue working on 3D modeling
    • Thursday: Begin working with Adafruit Bluetooth component
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Unconventional Honesty Post 1

Progress: Most of this week finalizing our design, mapping the wires, and ordering our final project pieces due to our lack of physical items. Our main issue is our lack of items, but we’ve been working around that by figuring out solutions to possible problems before they arrive. In example, we have been thinking on jacket construction and how we will create our final prototype. Instead of building the jacket from scratch, we will build on top of a hacked jacket.

 

Issues: As previously stated, the main issue has been the lack of products to actually work with, but our order of neopixels has been placed!

 

This Week: We will finalizing our mapping plans and beginning our programming sequences. We will also begin to look at possible jackets to build on top of.

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EoS Week 1

EoS Project By Konnor Beaulier

Progress: All of my parts arrived! The best part is that the LRF module, Arduino, and OLED display are much smaller than I anticipated, however after drawing up some rough placement plans I can see that the width may in fact still be an issue. If width does prove to be a problem I can then look at the fallback plan of splitting the device on both sides of the glasses and figuring out what I need to use to connect the two sides.

LRF module

Arduino micro pro

OLED display

Issues: The lenses I have are excellent at reflecting light so I think they’ll work well for the OLED display, however my only concern is looking through them is a real eyesore. This may not prove to be a problem depending on how small I can make the display, but if it is too big and is a real nuisance then I may need to find a different lens to use.

Next: I don’t have wires small enough to test my electronic components so I’ll be looking to either get some in class or pay a visit to the engineering building to try and get some if possible. Once I get those I’ll be able to hook up the Arduino and the OLED display to get that displaying properly and will even be able to work on getting the readings from the LRF module which is great.

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Adjustable Shoe – Blog Post #1

Project Title: Adjustable Shoe

Project Team: Rachel Stern

Project Description:

  • Professional wear shoe that has a heel that changes height. The user can adjust the heel at 0.5” increments from a flat shoe (0.75” heel and 0.5” platform) to a high heel (4” heel and 1” platform).

Sketches/Concept Art

Materials and Costs

  • Heel
    • Concentric funnels
      • Original Prototype: 3D Printed Plastic: $2.50/part + $0.49/material cm3
      • Once the design is finalized, parts will be reordered, likely in titanium; decision pending final cm3 as this will determine overall cost.
    • Dual-Direction Rotator and Motor: TBD based on final material selection.
  • Platform
    • Rubber sole
      • 3D Printed Plastic: $2.50/part + $0.49/material cm3
    • Rechargeable (via USB) battery
      • Lithium Ion Polymer Battery – 3.7v 500mAh – $7.95
    • Bluetooth receiver
      • Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE – $29.95
      • Feather Stacking Headers – 12-pin and 16-pin female headers – $1.25
    • Shoe Shell
      • The portion will be created with found parts and fabric that I own. The approximate cost of these items was $20.

 

Timeline (*short timing to allow for extra time to be added in weeks that require it)

  • w/o 2/27: Finish CADs for concentric dual-sided threaded rings and order 3D prints.
  • w/o 3/6: Determine proper motor and rotation mechanisms to operate heel movement; order and test parts.
  • w/o 3/13: Build platform elements and test functionality: battery and charging housing in upper platform and movement track for lower platform.
  • w/o 3/20: Build shoe skeleton using heel and platform prototypes and found materials.
  • w/o 3/27: Incorporate Bluetooth technology to operate heel movement.

Fallback Plans

  • Lower the overall height of the heel/ platform to reduce cost and possible structural issues.
  • Change heel to platform to resolve any design issues.

 

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Muscle Jet-Project planning

Muscle Jet

Abrahan Bechara

Project Description: Long sleeve T-shirt that shows through color changing light the force generated in a group of muscles.

Fun experimental project: Showing EMG data through a color changing scale is something that has not been done before, and has a few interesting challenges. One of them being the incorporation of fiber optics in to the fabrics.

The circuit will be very simple:

The overall structure will be:

Materials: 

-Fiber optic

-Wool

-RGB led

-EMG electrodes

-Amplifier

-Arduino

-Sports T-shirt

-Maybe (Screen print)

Timeline:

What When
Material purchase March 2
Code + Concept test March 7
The technology for the project is shown to work March 16
First prototype (Functionality) March 28
The technology has been shown to work in a wearable configuration April 6
Second prototype (Efficiency) April 13
Feedback and refinement
The technology and final wearable are fully integrated April 20

Fallback:  The signal acquisition will be the biggest challenge, if I cannot solve it them I would have to do a completely different project trying to incorporate the fiber optic and light display.

My plan B idea is a cycling aid belt that signals direction and stopping; the image below shows the configuration.

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Project Post 1

Project Title: EoS

Members: Konnor Beaulier

Description: I will be making wearable range finder glasses with a heads up display, so the user can determine the distance of an object and the distance will show on a lens in front of their eye.

 

A lot of the concept and inspiration came from: http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Data-Glasses-for-My-Multimeter/

Where this man made arduino glasses for his multimeter with a heads up display. So even though I will be straying from his original plan and look, I will be using this as a base:

Here we can clearly see the heads up display as well as the casing for the circuitry. However, a big difference is that my range finder glasses will have the two lenses for the range finder module on the outside of the glasses, next to the lens of the heads up display.

 

Materials:

  • LRF (laser range finder) module, 100m distance: $47
  • Arduino pro micro chip: $9
  • Glass lens for the display: $6
  • OLED micro display: $15
  • Small plastic mirror: Depends on schematic
  • Battery: Only if needed
  • Charger circuit: Depends on total power needs

Timeline:

Week 1:

  • Order all of the supplies needed

Week 2:

  • Beginning assembling the prototype
  • Get a rough housing of the circuits created

Week 3:

  • To have the OLED display and the arduino displaying the correct results
  • If the LRF module arrives in time, get that coordinated as well
  • Start calculating the optics numbers needed

Week 4:

  • LRF shows correct distance and it is displayed in the OLED screen
  • Cut the lens to the sizes needed
  • Work on final housing

Week 5:

  • Assemble all the circuits with the optics, test to make sure it displays
  • Create final housing, 3D printing?

Week 6:

  • Testing and fine tuning
  • Improvements if needed

 

Fallback:

A big fallback would result if the actual device is too wide or too heavy to sit on one side of the glasses, which would result in me having to switch the LRF module to the other side of the glasses. Then my casing would have to loop behind the user’s head, connecting the microcontroller to the LRF and supporting the device and glasses as well. Another fallback would be if the LRF never comes due to shipping issues or if I can’t get it to work properly. In this case I’ll get a much shorter range module on sparkfun for about $15 just to get the initial outline of the project working. I’ll set the cutoff for all of this at the end of week 3/beginning of week 4 where I should have the LRF module and know how to use it.

 

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Lauren’s Project

Project Title TBD

Project Team Members Me, Lauren

Project Description

Versatile, fashionable jacket that can be worn for casual streetwear or for athletic wear/running, biking, yoga, etc. Jacket will have smart textile technology that allows the fabric to go from looking normal during the day to a visible, glowing fabric at night.

Sketches/Concept Art

Materials and Costs

  • 90% polyester, 10% spandex or Neoprene
  • Mesh fabric
  • Sewing materials, flat patterns
  • LunaBrite light technology products
    • Eco-friendly, machine washable, adds visible glow without wires or batteries. Lunabrite recharges daily in sunlight or room light, emitting illuminating glow from dusk to dawn.

Timeline

3/1: prototype, sport jacket ordered

3/2: Lunabrite technology contacted and waiting to hear back.

3/7: Have prototype jacket in hand

3/21: finish prototype

3/23: begin final

Fallback Plans

If Lunabrite light technology becomes unaffordable or does not work out, I will use an arduino lillypad and battery for LEDs or el panel with a light sensor.

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Haptic Glove First Project Post

Project Title

Haptic Glove

Project Team Members

Kevin, Qiuxuan

Project Description

We hope to create a glove that can be used to interact with objects in virtual reality. Most of the virtual reality products now are focusing on visual experiences, such as “VR Goggle”. However, it loses touch sensations, such as the feeling of gravity and interaction force. Touch sensation plays a significant role in maximizing people’s experience. Therefore, we want to create a VR glove that uses special wires which are sensitive to temperature change (contract 3%-5% when exposed to heat or electrical current) to mimic the feeling of touching and pressure, to provide more realistic and engaging experience to users.

Sketches/Concept Art


Connection\mounting type will be a looped conventional wire, or perforated actuator ribbon. Electrical connection will run in the gloves hemming for aesthetics and practicality.

Securing the Actuator wire is the most critical step currently. The force that the wire generates, varying between gauge, may burst the mounting, may stretch the underlying fabric so that there is not haptic feedback. Maintaining a fixed location on the glove to engage a haptic response may require 3D printed “splints,” to counteract the lateral forces generated. Elastic tension may be required to run along the nail side of the finger to give the additional guarantee of proper response.

Consideration on mounting site must account for the ~5% contraction, so that tread does not break upon Actuator activation.

We will use Unity to develop the programming and connect the microcontrollers with gloves, letting the sensors to communicate with the computer.

Materials and Costs

  1. FLEXINOL® Actuator Wire   estimated cost: $10-20
  2. Microcontrollers and USB    estimated cost: $40
  3. Glove                                      estimated cost: $10
  4. Wires                                      estimated cost: $10
  5. 3D-Printing Materials            estimated cost: $20

Timeline

March 6: Have all necessary materials.

March 12: Finish (3D printing model) and wire design.

March 15: Test

Milestone 1 (March 16): The technology for the project is shown to work

Spring Break

March 30: Programming and combine it with the glove

April 5: Test on program

Milestone 2 (April 6): The technology has been shown to work in a wearable configuration

April 13: Prepare for demo

Milestone 3 (April 20): The technology and final wearable are fully integrated

Fallback Plans

Ideally, we hope to use FLEXINOL® Actuator wires to provide haptic feedback. However, if it is not applicable, we can use other wires and shape into alternate forms to provide better feedback. Or we can use the wire to pull a spring/coil or elastic band to provide feedback. Or we can use tiny rumble motors or electrodes.