Shin and Luke final project

Post date: Oct 24, 2017 6:53:14 PM

On the first day, we began with trying to design and make an amplifier. 

10/15

Then Mr. D told us that we should make a bluetooth speaker. Mr. D already had the basic bluetooth set, so all we have to do, is buy the other materials needed, and assemble the speaker. We were very interested in making the ampliphier meaning the thing the speakers sit in. Our original design was to have the speakers inside cheif wahoo, and the sound would come out of the mouth. 

Today we also received the circut board, which was in a set Mr.D gave us to connect, to the speaker. This board generates electricty is what essentally gets the speakers the play music. Next class we will envistigate more how to use it, and charge it. 

10/17

Today we decided to start working on our paper prototype of the speaker, and finalize our design. The image of our design is attached below. We would like to do that desgin, but also with a "Day of the Dead Theme". 

 This is the new design we looked at that we plan to base our design off of

A large issue with this design, is the material is very expensive for this kind of wood. It is priced at 1,350$ online, and it will most likely cost around that to build. Instead, we plan to make the speaker witha a much cheaper wood material, and speaker. We also plan on adding a Day of the Dead

10/19

 Today we were able to learn more about our circut board. We learned how to charge it, and give it electiricity. The picture is an image of our circuit board, plugged in and working. If you look closely, you can see a blue light that is bright from the electricity. 

Today, we made a "sloppy" sketch for our speaker design. The front would be a Dio De Lo Muertos skull and the eyes would be the speakers. It would stand up properly because there would be planks attached on all the sides to make it stand up. The fixed some issues with the design in this new sketch. We decided, instead of making a curved edge, we decided to make all the edges straight, so that we can laser cut a side for the speaker.

Today, we made a cardstock skull (our prototype). Suprisingly this took us a while because we thought, that we couldn't print out curves on inscape, later Mr.D said we could. 

we will further this design more with details like the Dia De los Muertos skull. We instead of kerf cutting, make planks for every straight side of the skull. Which wasn't very smart. We then remembered kerf cutting and got hooked on that idea. 

10/23

Today, we did a lot of research on kerf cutting, because for our design we are going to kerf cut the back side of the skeleton. Here is a website that helped aid our understanding, 

https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/kerf-cutting-how-to-bend-wood-with-your-mind-i-mean-saw/

 We also started on a really simple inscape design,

this is a really basic, design we will further it with more design, like dia de los muertos. 

Today, we designed the speaker on inkscape to laser cut on cardboard the next day. Mr.D said that instead of making all the edges straight, we could use a kerf cut to make the wood bend. Both of us did not understand fully how the cut worked, so we researched into it, a lot of class. In the bin against the wall, Mr.D showed us multiple examples of Kerf Cutting, but we could not use most of them due to their fragility. Another obstacle we have come across is the measurement. We need to find the measurement of curved lines, and find the perimeter, and create a kerf to fit that perimeter. I believe this process will take a long time.

10/23

Today we did not have much time to work because we had to clean the room up and look over each other's online webpages. Today, we began the design for the kerf cut that we will be using for the back of the speaker. We bagan by creating a line on inkscape, and then copying and pasting it to create two lines, four lines, etc. We then began to copy a whole row, and paste them below the first row in a jagged order. We plan to find the measurements of the inkscape prototype and use the kerf cut soon.

10/26 

Today we will work on our kerf cut, and finding the measurements of the prototype. 

this is our Kerf Cut, in Inskape. Kerf Cut, if a way to vinyl cut wood to make it bendable. Our back of the skull will be kerf cut. Basically in Inskape, we make a pattern of lines and copy and pasted and aligned the lines. We will shorten how much wood is kerf cutted, but we wanted to see how it would look and work. 

Today, we laser cutted out the skull. This went very smoothly and well. The only thing we did wrong was forgot to take out the filling of the eyes. This step took a while, but it was a necc

now we will work, on printed out kerf cut, and we are waiting for the speakers to come. We made this skull in inscape. 

Today, the speakers came! We quickly set them up with getting the circuit board ready and plugged in. Than we cut the wires from the speakers so that the white plastic part wasn't there. than put them into the green part of the circuit board, screwed them in, and music started playing. Looking the speaker as the eyes of the skull makes the skull look ten times better.

here is a picture, of a playing speaker, for the eyes. This is not what the final design will look like but it helps us get measurments, and get a visual. Next class we will work on, laser cutting our kerf cut, but today was definatly a day, full of progress and success. Today we also agreed upon making a kerf cut socket for the speakers to sit in, because without that, the speakers wont be stable.  

Today we,cut out our kerf cut sides, for the skull. We hot glued it down to the side, because its a prototype. We also made kerf cut sockets for the speakers to sit in. We made these designs in inscape, and just laser cutted them out. It surprisingly wasn't that hard, we just made a pattern in inscape. 

Although this is just a prototype, our gluing methods were not the most accurate, and some of the edges around the top curve were showing. This bothered us quite a lot due to our need for perfection, but we decided in the end, it was just a prototype, and perfection is not needed.

So today we cut out the sides for the straight edges. We ran into a dilemma though, because we didn't print them the same height as the kerf cut. We realized this when we were gluing them down and fixed the side measurements. We changed the inkscape measurements for the carboard measurements through inkscape, and it fit perfeclty. Now all we have to do is make sockets for the speakers to sit in, and also find a space for the kerf cut. 

image of, sides with kerf cut, can see error

prototype with good side length

So in todays class we came up with a creative idea, to have speakers sit in kerf cut, in inside of skull. This would be alternative to screwing. We didn't want to screw because we didn't want nails to be showing. This would also be an alternative to hot gluing. This class we also printed out cardboard back of skull.

The Kerf cut also provided quite a stable support to the speakers, but we were not sure whether the speakers would stay in place with the fragility of the cardboard.

this is a picture of back of skull printout.

image we kerf cut sockets.  

This class we put everything together. We took the speakers out though because it is just a prototype. We also had the idea to have the mouth be piece of paper and circuit board would sit on that. Next class we are just going to start on wood prototype. 

this class we began our wood prototype!! We printed our wood skull, and also printed out the kerf cut. In the picture, you can see the kerf cut attached to the skull. This took us a very long time because we wanted it too look very professional so wanted to take a long time glueing, so there weren't any errors. We were very satisfired with doing this because we are getting closer to being done class by class. 

this is a picture of our printed out skull, w kerf cut on outside.

This class, is our second to last so we planned on doing a lot, and we did. We printed out all of, the sides, thorugh laser cutter, and inscape. We also set the speakers up in the eyes, printed out a back to the speaker, and decided upon making kerf cut, be in the mouth so the circuit board could sit on it. . We also make an acces point for the charger through a side of the wood. 

this is a picture of the access point for the charger. We simply just, cut out an opening in one of the sides.  

this is a picture of the sides cut out, we cut out these sides through inscape.  

this is a picture of everything together, and the speakers set in the eyes. We simply just got glued the speakers in the eyes. 

We made the finished touches this class! All we have to do now is make a presentation! 

this is a picture, of cardboard prototype, and the finshished one. 

Class Reflection

I am very happy with how our project turned out. All the hours and effort spent on this project paid off, when our final project was done. We were very satisfied with the crastmanship, and the final product of this speaker. I think we could of went the easy way out and did something simple, like the basketball hoop, but I am so glad we challenged ourself and made something, that we can actally use and is really cool. I also think we could of done this in a quick, and sloppy way but I'm really glad we put in the extra work to have an awesome final product.-

-Luke Culver

Class Reflection