Engineering and Design Method 1

Twist Weather Station: Big Project Blog

1/14/16 - 1/15/16: Digital Portfolio

I have spent the last two days working on perfecting my digital portfolio.

1/11/16 - 11/13/16: More Coding

Unfortunately for me, the code I have doesn't work and I do not know how to fix it. I have looked on the internet for many classes and have been unsuccessful in defining a stringMsg, and now nothing will compile. It's incredibly frustrating to have given up so much time for an unsuccessful end project. But, I learned and incredible amount about using an Intel Edison board, a whole new language of programing.

1/9/16: Saturday

Today was Saturday. I was able to run a code for my new DHL11 sensor that came it. It was successful and that was fantastic.

This is the DHL11 sensor!

1/8/16: Fire

Today Mr. D worked with me on get the MQ4 sensor working. We lit card board on fire and it was incredibly fun.

1/5/16-1/7/16: Code

This week has been code week. Slowly, but surely I have been working though the problems that have arisen because of the merging of the code with different censors. For one, I ordered a new DHT sensors because I had the wrong version of the code originally. The original code will not function due to the fact that the sensor I purchased are incompatible with the code written. Apparently, the version of sensor as well as the type of sensor requires a completely unique code. Unfortunately for me, I did not know the coding language for programing weather sensor. Although, the coding language was completely new to me I tried to figure it out all week. Finally, I was unable to to complete the code and for that reason my project does not work, and will not work together 😑. On the brights side, all of the individual sensors are able to record and transmit their data. I even got the Twitter working. I just wasn't able to get all of the sensors to work together.

1/4/16: Tweeted! New problem

I came in the Monday before school started up again and after lots of work was able to make the Edison board tweet, but it says that everything is equal to zero. The temp, humidity, and all the gas levels.

For try one I connected all the computer and the Edison Board to a wireless hot spot, but then all of a sudden, out of the blue, the hot spot stopped connecting to the internet. Then, for try two, Mr.D let me borrow his hot spot. I reconnected the Edison Board and computer to the AT&T hot spot, which apparently get a better connection at school. Finally, for the third picture I was able to get a sample tweet from the Edison board. For the last picture, I was able to tweet the message. Also, I have figured about why it would only tweet once. Twitter will not tweet the same identical message twice.

12/9/15: Problems Solved and New Problem Gained

Currently, the Intel Edison board is connected to the internet and the code works perfectly. Before their was no library called twitter, so today I downloaded the library of twitter. After coming in on Sunday and after school multiple times I am on the brink of completion. Now a new problem has arrived, the project will not tweet!

12/6/15: New Horrendous Problem

After a week and a half of hard work the Intel Edison board's WiFi connected! This should have meant that I could move on with my project, but as soon as I got to trying the next step I learned that my school had blocked twitter and that I couldn't activate a code from it. After hours of work on I Sunday I went home.

Success: Problem:

After this was fixed the next problem arose: the Intel Edison board would pop up and then it would go away quickly.

The upside down words say that <Twitter.h> is not a directory.

This video shows the who Intel Edison Board disappearing and reappearing.

12/3/15: Serious Problem

Last night I spent four hours working on trying to connect my Intel Edison board to the internet and I was incredibly unsuccessful I even went through the manual process of trying to down load. A main problem was that the 3rd port didn't show up. SO just in case that wasn't important I moved on the next step and everything was alright until I tried to flash my board. Then I got a non-connector error at 23% even though it had said connected before. After watching that fail multiple times my mom and I went to the maker space of 36th street. Unfortunately, even the MIT graduate could not connect the Intel Edison board to WiFi.

12/2/15: PROBLEM 😰

I have spend the last week trying to connect my Edison Intel board to WiFi. I have been incredibly unsuccessful. I am going to try to connect the board through a PC instead of a mac, because I think the mac might be the base of my problems. Another major problem is that the project is due very soon and it is not completed. Unfortunately, my school doesn't use Intel boards, so their is no prior knowledge on why the board might not be working.

11/30/15: Back to Work

Now that Thanks Giving is over I am working on my project again in class. Over the break I assembled the pieces (sensors and wires) on to my board.

11/23/15: Laser Cutting

Today I printed my final to scale laser cut. Now I can begin to work on the next step of the project. Which is due 12/8 uh oh.

11/20/15: Working

Today during class I perfected my SVG. It only took about 20 versions! The final one is below. Hopefully, I will print the final version later today and print the new 3D standoff's with holes.

11/18/15: Laser Cutting

Today I laser cut the triangles from yesterday, but unfortunately something happened and the bottom didn't print out. I had to use and exact knife to cut it a part. Here is a picture bellow. Finally, at home I edited the triangles, so hopefully tomorrow they will print off the laser cutter with out a problems. I'm printing them first in cardboard in order to make a mock up copy.

11/17/15: Shipping

Today the MQ4 Gas Sensor shipped from amazon. Also, now I can continue working on the laser cut file. Hope fully by Thanksgiving I will have a mock up version of my project.

11/16/15: Working

Today I started printing and editing an already made bolt. Currently the bolt is printing and so far so good 😃! Here is a picture of what it looked like after I edited it:

11/13/15: Photography

Today I spent class taking a few photo's of my new project parts. Here are the best ones:

11/12/15: Design

Today I continued work on my laser cut design and I received a temperature and humidity sensor.

11/11/15: Printed!

My 3D standoffs printed and one is a perfect circle and the other two are a little more oval shaped. Also, my Intel Edison board also arrived yesterday night so I can begin to start my dimensions on the laser cut sides of the TWIST weather station. These are my first one, the new one I DECIDED to put holes into so that they can attach pieces of card board together.

11/10/15 : Printing

Today I starting the printing process. I am printing the standoffs I designed yesterday. Today I am also going to start my dimensions for the two triangles that will hold all of the components of my TWIST weather station. I have decided to make the dimensions at the base 14 in and the height 8 in.

11/9/15 : Starting Instructions

Today I designed the 3D printable standoffs. I also started working on the directions. These directions have to be incredibly detailed so that someone else would be able to replicate this weather machine and build and improve it. This is what I accomplished today:

- Steps 1 and 2

- Standoffs (bellow)