InvenTeam Engineering Applications

School Year and Class Context

During this year of my engineering pathway course, we will be focusing on applying for and hopefully participating in the MIT Lemelson grant. We started this process last semester (10th grade) by researching possible innovations, even though at that point we were doing school from home because of the Corona-virus pandemic. At the start of this school year, we have been working non stop to continue the application process.

Application Process

Over the summer of 2020, we found out that we had been selected to continue the application process for the MIT lemelson grant. The final application for the grant is due on the 8th of September, and is composed mostly of research of our selected topic. The application process will be documented, but not the details. We started this by receiving feedback on our initial proposal that was submitted at the end of last school year, and found out that our idea had already been invented, so we needed to come up with another, so that is how we are going to start this application process, by brainstorming for another idea.

Brainstorming

The brainstorming process is the start to any great innovation, so naturally, that's where we started. For this process, we as a class decided to divide and conquer. Using the website Coggle.it, everyone in the class was able to give there own ideas, and after only a few days, we had well over a hundred topics and innovation ideas to chose from.

Our Brainstorming Ideas-

Local Problems
Bike Theft
Climate Change
Corona-virus (Covid-19)
Systematic Racism

Local Problems

Bike Theft

Climate Change

Covid-19

Systematic Racism

My Brainstorm - Litter

For my portion of the brainstorming, I chose to work on the Local problems Coggle, more specifically, Litter. I went into depth about litter in parks and how Covid-19 has had an impact on them.

My Innovation Ideas

Idea #1

Idea number 1 is a trash can that has IR sensors on it to alert the parks department that that park needs its trash cans emptied.

Idea #2

Idea number 2 is a trash can that has two aspects to it. The first part of it would be that a portion of the trash can would be underground for more trash storage area, and the second part of it would be a hydrophilic press to compress the trash.

Idea #3

Idea number 3 is a device that can separate trash from recycling to help prevent the amount of plastic that is polluting landfills.

Innovation Research

Out of my 3 ideas, 2 were eliminated because they already have patents. My second proposed idea was the only one that I could not find any patents for, so I continued to research this idea and prepare it for the voting process.

Voting on Ideas

Everyone was in charge of researching their 3 ideas, and out of the ones that were left and not eliminated, we had to chose 4 potential final ideas. Everyone received 3 votes, and in the end, my idea received 4 votes. My idea did not come in the top 4 after voting finished, but after a little more research, we as a class decided to put my idea into the final 4.

Application Process

Background Research

The next portion of the application process is actually starting work on completing the written application, but because we still have 4 ideas, this is also being used to further research our final 4 ideas so we may pick a final idea. The class was split up into groups of 3-4 people, and in those groups, we worked on finding the background research on one of the ideas. Because one of my ideas were one of the final 4, I was the group leader for my group, and I was in charge of describing how the innovation was unique, and how people can benefit from it.

Innovation Statement

The innovation statement was the second portion of the application that needed to be completed. At this point in the application, the class had yet again been split into different groups, about 3 or 4 students in each group, and each of those groups was in charge of completing a portion of the application. The innovation statement is us describing how our innovation works, and how it is unique and useful.

Preparing for Remote Inventing

This portion, as stated in the application document, is making a plan and preparing to switch from inventing in school, to inventing from home, but as we were already participating in school from home because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we developed a plan for starting the application at home, and later hopefully moving to a in person inventing process. We were hoping that we would still be aloud access to the school facilities but were informed that we would have to work complacently remotely, so as a team, we decided that each person will be in charge of one portion of the project and be in charge of completing it at there house.

Patent Searching

Patent searching is a very important part of the inventing process because you need to know if the innovation already exists. We tried to do very through patent searching, but after almost a week of working on our chosen innovation, we discovered that the innovation did exist. When we found this out, we only had a week left to work, so we had to pretty much go back to the first step of brainstorming.

Final Idea & Application

Team Video

engineering video 2.mov

Final Application to Lemelson MIT

Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Application Document (all written parts)

Short Electronics Project

As of this time, we have turned in the application for the invent team, but it may take up to two months to know if we were selected for the grant. In the mean time, we will be working on a small project with materials given to us by out teacher, and this project will also help us start preparing some techniques for the invent team, assuming we are selected.

Labeling Materials

Today was the first day of starting work on our new electronics project. We spent the time we had together in class going over what each of the materials were. To the left, you can see each of the materials with labels above or next to them.

Circuit Diagram

A circuit diagram is a visual representation of all of the connections in a circuit.One note is that when making and looking at the diagram, you can not represent a breadboard. To create this diagram, I used the following website, https://www.circuit-diagram.org/editor/

Circuit Picture

The circuit picture is different from the diagram because it uses actual pictures of the components, not symbols, and the breadboard is also visually represented. To create this picture, I used Tinkercad.

Research on 8x8 LED matrix

Circuit Picture

This picture shows how you should wire up the LED 8x8 matrix to the exact pins on the Arduino.

How the Matrix Works?

This video goes in depth on the inner workings of the LED matrix, and also talks about how the matrix is coded.

How to Code the Matrix?

Along with describing how to code the Matrix, this website also talks about additional wiring and also other components that could be added later on.

Working 8x8 LED matrix

IMG_6121.MOV

Video of Matrix Functioning

After re wiring my Arduino and 8x8 matrix I was finally able to get it to display 3 different images.

Circuit Picture

The circuit picture shows exactly what each of the components looks like and how they are all connected.

Circuit Diagram

The circuit diagram is a more professional representation of all of the components. Instead of using an exact representation of each component, the diagram uses symbols to represent each component.

Hardware Slides - InvenTeam

Code

// 2-dimensional array of row pin numbers:

int R[] = {2,7,A5,5,13,A4,12,A2};

// 2-dimensional array of column pin numbers:

int C[] = {6,11,10,3,A3,4,8,9};

unsigned char biglove[8][8] = //the big "heart"

{

1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,

0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0,

0,0,1,0,0,1,0,0,

0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,

0,0,1,0,0,1,0,0,

0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0,

1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,

};

unsigned char smalllove[8][8] = //the small "heart"

{

0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,

};

unsigned char othershape[8][8] = // comment

{

0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,

0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,

};

void setup()

{

// iterate over the pins:

for(int i = 0;i<8;i++)

// initialize the output pins:

{

pinMode(R[i],OUTPUT);

pinMode(C[i],OUTPUT);

}

void loop()

{

for(int i = 0 ; i < 100 ; i++) //Loop display 100 times

{

Display(biglove); //Display the "Big Heart"

}

for(int i = 0 ; i < 50 ; i++) //Loop display 50 times

{

Display(smalllove); //Display the "small Heart"

}

for(int i = 0 ; i < 100 ; i++)

{

Display(othershape);

}

void Display(unsigned char dat[8][8])

{

for(int c = 0; c<8;c++)

{

digitalWrite(C[c],LOW);//use thr column

//loop

for(int r = 0;r<8;r++)

{

digitalWrite(R[r],dat[r][c]);

}

delay(1);

Clear(); //Remove empty display light

}

void Clear() //清空显示

{

for(int i = 0;i<8;i++)

{

digitalWrite(R[i],LOW);

digitalWrite(C[i],HIGH);

}

Ultrasonic Sensor Research

Arduino's Website Ultrasonic code

The ultrasonic sensor uses ultra sound like a bat does. Using ultrasound, the sensor can detect how close or far away something is.

How to use an ultrasonic sensor

This website goes into great detail on how the device works to find the distance between itself and other objects, along with showing how the device should be wired and coded.

IMG_6236.MOV

Working Ultrasonic Sensor

Using this source given to me by a classmate, I was easily able to plug in the corresponding wires and copy the code into the Arduino software and have a working sensor.

InventTeam Selection!!!

After countless hours of work and trying to prove ourselves worthy of being given this opportunity, all of the hard work finally paid off. I am overjoyed at this news and can not wait to get started on the invention process with my team.

Initial Research

Block Diagram

Before we can start the research process, we need to know what we need to research specifically, as well as break the team up into separate groups or sub teams. This diagram lays out all of the various components and procedures our device will need to complete and therefore we will need to create, so this will greatly help us break up into teams so that we can effectively complete the invention.

Technical Teams

This document describes what each team will be incharge of for this step researching, but in the future what they will actually be in charge of completing on the final project. The names under each section are just for research and are not final, but they do reflect what most students are interested in doing.

Hardware Team Research

For the initial research process I was on the hardware team. On the second slide to the left you will be able to see all the questions that needed to be answered in relation to the block diagram (located above). On each slide you can see the team members name who completed the research for that question, and there research.

Team Selection and Voting

Each student submitted a video recording of themselves describing what role they would like to be given, so as a team on our zoom call, we will all go through each of the pitches. After everyone has watched all of the videos, we will vote on each role to decide who will be the leader for that select team.

Assignment of Team Roles

After reviewing each members video presentation, the team voted on roles. As you can see based of the picture, I was selected as the administrative lead as well as being a member of the hardware team.

Next Steps

Administrative Lead

As the administrative lead, it is my job to keep track of deadlines and assist wherever i can. The Internal Tech Review that is due on the 30th is the monday after our week long thanksgiving break, so I had to make sure the team was aware of this and completed what was necessary for the review.

Hardwear team

Our next steps for the Hardware team are to order the parts to start making the device, and to actually start building the device when the parts arrive. we will also need to have a basic understanding of the coding language so we will also need to take a Python coding course to prepare for building our invention.

Research

After deciding our next steps, we had to actually make a list of the materials we will need to create the invention, so we begin research on what exactly we would need to create a functional device.

End of Year Documentation

Copy of MGTR Presentation.pptx

Mid Grant Tech Review

Half way through the grant year, (February of 2021), we had to present to Lemelson MIT our progress thus far. Each team was in charge of creating and presenting there portion of the project as well as being ready to answer any questions from the audience about there area of expertise.

Owen Grega - InvenTeam Research (example documentation)

Ongoing Documentation Slides

Since the beginning of the year, around the time of the mid grant tech review, each team member has been in charge of keeping a in depth documentation of all of there work in a set of google slides, so that if we need a link we found a week ago, or someone is trying to replicate what someone else has already done, the slides are there to help with that, so no one is doing something someone else has already done.

DCS EurekaFestPresentation without script

Final Presentation

The project has come to a close and now the final presentation to Lemelson MIT. This will consist of a 10 minuet presentation from the whole team giving a quick run down of all the work that has been completed up to the point of the presentation.

Project Reflection

This project has been a lot, a lot of work, time, stress, and many other things. I think its safe to say that I have spent more time working on this project than what I have done in all of my other classes combined. The biggest challenge of the project was defiantly finding the time and motivation to work on the project. There were times, weeks at a time where it felt like there was no progress being made because of an issue, and that just continues to decrease my motivation, because part of what helps me want to keep working is making progress. There were plenty of accomplishments that the team and I made over the year. Just a few of mine were getting the camera to work, and get the video to save as an MP4 file (that was harder to figure out that you might think). As a team, getting the mid grant tech review finished was a great accomplishment, because we spent weeks preparing and changing those slides, because we would finish part of the presentation, but then make progress on the project and have to change the whole thing. This project has defiantly influenced my desire to peruse an engineering career, but has also helped me decide what parts of engineering I do and don't enjoy. My favorite parts being the actual building of the device, and wish that this project contained more of that. My least favorite part would have to be the coding, I just find it so tedious, and I would just much rather focus my attention on the actual building of the device.

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