In engineering class we made lamps out of wood that we coded to preform different tasks. The pictures below shows the lamp when it was being made.
First, we drew a prototype on a sheet of paper. Once we did that, I made a physical prototype with cardboard, in which we learned how to code the lights to make the actual lamp. Once I got the okay to make a final product, I started making a Inkscape drawing online to laser cut. Inkscape is a program we used to cut the wood.
The arduino is the device we used to code the lamp. We plugged the wires into the computer, then we opened the arduino program to code the lamps. Once we did that, all we had to do was to keep it plugged into the computer since the arduino board did not power on its own.
The gluing process in my opinion was one of the hardest things to do in the entire project. It took a full day for the lamp to stick and stay together. First, we had to find out what angle were my triangles going to fit together. That was the easiest part of the process since I already knew that I need a 45 degree angle for the triangles to fit onto the square. Next, I sanded the triangle to the angle that was going to fit perfectly. Afterwards, I taped the pyramid together so I could glue the pieces together and keep it together so they could fit.
Steam aspect of the Geolamp project
Science: In engineering, we learned about how to wire things together and how to connect them together using a soldering iron. The solderig iron used heat whic was conencted to physics.
Technology: We learned how to code using the ardiuno circuit board. This was used on a computer to code and then we downloaded the code to the lamp and it ran perfectly.
Engineering: We had to cut and construct different type of wood to put together. We had to do multiple prototypes before we could make our final lamp.
Arts: Before making our prototypes, we make different types of bluprints on about 3 sheets of paper. We also made different blueprints on the computer using art and desgin programs.
Math: During this project, we had to calculate how everything would fit into each other. We would have to subtract some peices of wood just to make some of the peices of the lamp fit. We also had to calculate how long each of our figures would be.
An example of code for my Geolamp
int led = 13;
void setup() {
pinMode(led, OUTPUT) ;
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(led, LOW) ;
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(led, LOW) ;
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(led, LOW) ;
delay(1000);
}
INk scape prototype digital drawing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_P4A0OGu-VBOuZYbGMNZDy7aNuLWNqrw/view
The first sketch of the system
We stated the 2020-2021 school year virtually, but that did not stop us from having a engineering project. The items we will be using are, A-B Cable, Arduino Uno, Continuous Rotation Servo with Servo, Screws and Servo Horns, Breadboard, Ultrasonic Distance Sensor, HM-10 Bluetooth Module, AA, Battery Holders (4), and AA Batteries. Using these tools will allow us to have a full fledge engineering project from home!
The project that we will be doing is creating a free moving robot. This robot will be able to roll using wheels and being made up of household materials such as cardboard. We will use the products to the left in order to code and get the robot working. Some other activities that it may be able to accomplish are to detect when something is close and being able to connect to a phone or other device that is Bluetooth compatible.
First project planning period: circuit diagrams and circuit pictures.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Dyizzm69Qo3RJNq8urusw_2N3vNpDL3s3qB6dplk2os&authuser=2