Personal Projects

Details

The main premise of this project is to make an LED wheel light up and perform various functions when each string has been strung. The project in itself will cost no more than around $70 or less depending on how many of the needed materials are provided in the FabLab. The materials include: a ukulele kit (link here), an LED ring (12-16 inches in circumference), an accelerometer, a 9V battery, a battery connector, and a switch. Using a 15 inch ukulele kit from Amazon, I will customize it to my personal liking. Because it is a particularly small instrument, it will be able to be taken and played anywhere, need be indoors or outdoors. Bluetooth will not be needed. I will program certain functions for the LED to do, like flash in a circular motion, using Arduino. Different from the original idea I found on instructables.com, the neck of the ukulele will also light up.

Planning

We began the process by creating a schedule of when we assumed we would complete each step of our projects. We labeled it as a "task analysis."

Steps to Follow

1. Gather Materials
2. Design the Image on Corel Draw (or whatever designing program of your choice)
3. Customize the Ukulele (raster image of choice)
4. Sand and Varnish Ukulele
5. Program Ukulele to Function How You Want (I used Mic Amp MAX4466 and a Flora to make NeoPixel 16 Ring react to sound)
6. 3D Print NeoPixel Ring Protector (I enlarged mine from the original size on the site to make the NeoPixel fit more in the middle)
7. Mount Neck of Ukulele to Body and Attach Bridge to Body
8. String the Ukulele
9. Test it for Any Malfunctions
10. Enjoy It!

Instructions from: https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Smart-Electronic-Ukulele-With-Arduino/

Starting

After making the task analysis, I started the first step. Because all but one of my materials came in on the first shipping day, I began immediately. I went through numerous design ideas such as a meadow with the ukulele hole being the sun, a flower, and a solar system. I narrowed it down to the solar system, however, that idea did not last long. The complexity of a solar system / galaxy proved to be a bit challenging for Corel. Instead of making the whole solar system, I opted for focusing on one planet, Saturn. There is no particular reason as to why I chose Saturn.

Project Log

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uV6mbPWuerQGgPUXoX89FhpprD2aTC1_zv4OIu0K_OU/edit

Final Materials List and Prices

3 Project Ideas

Details About Ideas (Includes info about general research regarding each project)

Project Management

In the planning stages of the project, I planned to have most of the steps done in November, but that did not work out at all. Most of the steps I wanted to have done in a day or so took about 3 days. Some issues I ran into include:

Constructing the Ukulele

Discussion

Designing

• Corel Draw file
• Difficulties and mistakes: Originally, I struggled with finding a picture that would be easy to trace into Corel Draw. I wanted to have a galactic-inspired image on my ukulele, but the images that I was selecting never traced properly into the software. I eventually chose a simple outline of Saturn. The next roadblock I experienced was the fact that I could not seem to get an exact measurement of the ukulele, so Saturn would be rastered precisely around the hole of the ukulele. I was very worried that the design would be extremely off and print no where near the hole. I made a blueprint on a sheet of cardboard of the exact measurements of the ukulele, and I had also outlined the ukulele on the cardboard. I started a fire in the laser cutter attempting to cut a sample Saturn to size with the physical ukulele which resulted in the blueprint burning as well. Because that was all I had been working on, I was extremely frustrated and thought that my project was never going to get done. However, a new idea arose which was to photo copy my ukulele and trace that image into Corel Draw. It ended up working perfectly, and I was able to successfully raster the Saturn where I wanted on the ukulele.

Constructing:

• Instructions
• Difficulties and mistakes: The instructions that were provided with the ukulele were absolutely useless. They did not provide accurate measurements, specific instructions, nor clear pictures in which I could tell what it wanted me to do. The instructions on the website helped very little as well because they were for the kit that they had bought. Also, the kit that I had bought did not provide what they said they would in terms of nuts and bolts, but luckily the Fab Lab had everything that was missing. I kind of built the ukulele by eye and what looked right. When stringing it, I accidentally mixed up the A and E strings' placement ( I put E where A was supposed to go), so I had to fix that. Prior to that minor setback, I had tightened the strings too much and caused the strings to break. I went to a music store and bought more, so it was not that big of an issue, but it did result in me rushing to string the instrument before class.

NeoPixel

Discussion

• Arduino File

Important Decisions

• The main important decision I made that deviated from my original plan was going from the 24 LED NeoPixel to the 16 LED NeoPixel. The main point of this decision was because it required less voltage to power less LEDs which made it easier on the Adafruit Flora.
• A smaller, but still important decision was to make the NeoPixel react to sound rather than vibrations or just having one specific code. On the website, they had one code that the NeoPixel would do on loop, but I added a microphone and had the patterns change from the LED's going around in a circle for softer sounds to all blinking at once with louder sounds.

All in All...

This project was really enjoyable to create. Although I ran into challenges along the way, I was able to complete my original task by the date it was due. This was my largest project that I have worked on by myself. Normally, in the past for big projects, I have worked in small groups. I enjoyed being by myself a lot more because I had full control over what decisions I could make and which direction I could take the project.

In the beginning, I believed everything was going to be a breeze and that I would complete the ukulele by, the latest, early December. That did not happen because the unexpected kept happening. I had anticipated small setbacks to happen, but not large ones, which were the most common to occur (example: the fire). I had to learn to work around these blockades on-spot which was something that I did not really have that much experience with. There was always a time crunch. There was never an "oh, I can do this later" because there was no "later." If I wanted to get everything done and have enough time to fix any issues, I could not procrastinate.

As I continued to work on the project, I learned a lot about myself. For example, I am not as bad at time management as I thought. With other subjects, this is something that I struggle with, but when it came to this project, I found that I was able to dedicate certain time to work on it and stick to it. I don't know if this is a skill that will stay, however it worked in my favor in this instance. If I could further work on this project, I would probably fix the NeoPixel and make it so that the whole ring reacts to sounds. Also, I would probably paint it to make it look more galactic-like.

Conclusive Video of Project