Project Development

track and document your progress.

Ideation

What do you think? Tell me Something

I'm tired of talking. My mini-me machine will talk instead of me.

Concept

What I'm going to make is a fortune-teller machine which will tell something ramdomly. I got an idea from fortune cookie and zolta machine. Those are pretty useless but fun and timeless. During the past decades, fortune teller machin(or cookie) haven't developed that much; they are still old fashioned and no technology-related.

On the web, you can easily find a lot of API of quotes. In this project, I aimed to make a re-programmable fortune teller machine. It could be a quote of the day machine or your favourite tweets machine.

Progress

My final project is consists of 4 parts

  1. Molding and casting
  2. Input Device - Touch Sensor
  3. Output Device - RGB Led & LCD display
  4. Networking - Wifi Connection



Casing

Progress

  1. 3D scanning
  2. 3D printing
  3. 3D machining & molding
  4. Casting




3D scanning

During week13, I made a 3d scan of my self. I used kinect and skanect. After I scanned myself, I filled some holes in my 3d mesh and modified it to appropriate for 3d printing and machining.


3D printing

First I tried to make a case with 3d printing. But I found that I cannot modified after I put electronics inside. So I changed my mind to make a mold and cast.


3D machining

Like I did make a mold during week13, I made a bigger version. This time, I don't want to make a food safe mold but one that I can make easily and in short time. I used task 2. It has really short pot life but also short cure time.

Casting

Also I tried to making a fast cast with fast cure product, smooth-cast 300 series. It only takes 10 min to cure so perfect for fast casting. But I found that it is not proper to make a lamp, unless I have 3-piece mold.

Next thing I tested was crystal clear series. This material is suitable for lighting product.

So I decided to try something radical. Put a led inside a cast.

Results




Output Device

I used the one I made previous week. Just made new board.




Input Device

  1. Make board
  2. Test




Wifi

Important! ESP works at 3.3V which means RX/TX should be also 3.3v.

I programmed esp directly using NomdeMCU Lua.

Here's some notes

  • Check Baud rate. Normally it is 9600 but some pre programmed board has 115200 baud rate
  • I had to re-flash the board; check this web
I succeded to communicate wirelessly and get txt file from a web. But the problem was I need to send a txt(string) to a lcd. So I changed to programme with Arduino IDE

Honestly speaking, using esp chip was time consuming. I recomend to use a moudule which has a built in reset button. Here is a nice tutorial. Also there's schematic for module board, so please take a look to avoid this mess.


Final

So last thing is putting everthing in a box. First I made acrylic box with laser cutter. It took a little time.

And I made asecond version with wood pannel using CNC.

Important thing: Be careful avout short!. Since it is easliy be short, we put a tape on it.



Result

Check final project page.

Conclusion

Did you make it in time?

Honestly no. I finished and uploaded literally 5 min before presentation. I feel so bad about myself.

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

Hardware(casing and boxing) is almost finised but software is unfinished. I made it to download txt files from the server but it comes with error messages. I have to change some codes to remove error messages.

how will I complete the remaining tasks in time?

Since I'll be outside of my country for next two months, I'm planning to finish it later.

What has worked? and what hasn't?

3d scanning, molding and casting parts are done. Led works well, also lcd display. Touch sensor used to work very well but somehow didn't work well after I put everything in a box.

What questions still need to be resolved?

Wifi connection is full of errors. In my code, I download a json file from the web and parse into a string. But the problem is that during the process, some error messages also appear.

what have you learned?

In the course of Fabacademy, I've learnt a lot of things; from 3d printing to web programming. One thing that I haven't learnt is project management. I hope one day I could finish my project in time.




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