Lesson19. Project Development

by Jiyoung An

Plan into Action, the Toughest Process

Growth Tree: essence of the project put into words

  • My application will aid this human-growing process by giving an immediate and persistent feedback on how tall one's tree has grown, how big you have grown.
  • Growth Tree comes in three main components
    • Tree made with laser cut MDF panel
    • PCB boards nestled in 3d printed casing
    • Desktop Application to water your tree
  • Interaction between the components as such:
    • Gear mechanism run by a stepper motor and silent stick
    • Bluetooth channel communicates with your desktop application
  • This project will prove that I can
    • 2d, 3d model
    • Laser cut
    • 3d print
    • Mechanical design
    • Design and produce electronics
    • Embedded and application program

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

  1. Design & Making
    • DONE:
      • Know how to create gear using different software
      • Decide which materials to use
    • TO DO:
      • Study gear mechanism(planetary, ring and rack gears, number of gears., etc.)
      • Do laser cut
      • Design model for 3d printing
      • Do 3d printing
  2. Electronic Design & Making
    • DONE:
      • Know components go into my PCB to be able to control gear with stepper motor and communicate with the application
      • Design board and schematic
      • Mill the Board
    • TO DO:
      • Solder on PCB
  3. Programming
    • DONE:
      • Design the behavior of application
      • Programmed Application
      • Know movement of a step motor
    • TO DO:
      • Do Embedded programming(only requires adaption)
  • Things have worked, and have not
    • Which motor to use to run the gear?

      • I thought that I coulud do it with servo motor(and that's why I did it in output device week), but it stepper motor is the better fit for this case.

    • Can we use more than one servo motors at the same time?

      • Even though running more than one servo motors is possible from the electronics side, but when it is brought to a issue to gear mechanisms I am not quite finding a way to put 3 gear running independently by different stepper motors with different speed.

  • What questions still need to be resolved?

    • Putting Gear mechanism into the tree, can I use planetary gear mechanisms into this?

Time planned --> actually taken & taken - things missing
Date set for final project pitch is 19th. I do have about 2 weeks of time to finish things up.
It is far relieving as I thought that I have only one week left. I will revise the plan and conquer the production process bit by bit.

  • Evaluation of project plan

    • Although I started conceptualizing ideas for the final project from the early phase of the fab academy, the time has shortened up while I am lingering on which idea to realize.
    It could have been much nicer if I had decided what to do based on the feasibility where judgments are drawn out expected skillset of fabacademy graduate and planned out evenly to work on my final project throughout the semester.
    But anyway, I have pursued, and gained such skills, I will be able to make it as I planned. Maybe a little difficult, it is still doable.

  • Getting Things done: Completing remaining tasks in time

    • For now, planning and organizing the time sounds like a bit luxury to me. Although it might not be a recommended thing, I am putting a lot of things off behind this project.
    Someone told me the amount of work left does always fit into the amount of time that I got. I am holding onto this statement and trying to keep the belief in myself. I will finish in time!
    Apart from my will, I am also getting massive help and support from instructor Marcel, Paulina and Jan Thar who is the manager of the Fablab Aachen. Therefore, again, I will be able to finish things in time!

Lesson Learnt

  • Start early, not only the concept design but also till specification.
  • Knowing what you will be able to do by the time fab academy will be finished will help you to judge feasibility of your initial concept - also you can learn from what others have done
  • Start early, this time your final project
  • If you have already set out, don't doubt on other options
  • Don't change your plan too much ( I doubted a lot, and always end up wasting time by searching for something else and coming back to an original idea)
  • [Given the fact that we are also having time-constraint] Ask for help if you cannot find an answer yourself for a long time.
  • Plan, but also plan out delay
  • Work intensively in a given time, but also take a rest sometime (I wished I knew about Paulina's Productivity Owl)