Matthew Yan

Hello Post!

A design/engineering strength:

I have years and years of drawing experience so even if I may have gotten a bit rusty at drawing recently, I am sure my ability to draw will be utilized as one of my strengths in designing.

A design/engineering area for growth:

I would love to learn how to be more comfortable with using power tools/machines because I feel like my lack of expertise can drive me into backing down from a challenging building design.

Three things I want to commit to in the documentation of my learning and projects:

I commit to taking many quality photos of my learning process
I commit to keeping my site as clear and easy to navigate as I can make it
I commit to writing thorough descriptions and summaries of my learning and project process as best as I can

PCB Ideation!

My group's PCB ideas were a heart, boot, flower, cup, cactus, and a tree. We decided that we liked the cactus the best. The pot at the bottom that the cactus is in is where the battery and switch will be. The four LED lights will be scattered along the plant.

Collaborative PCB

Nalin and I created a cactus PCB design. Our design uses a parallel circuit with four LED lights and 4 resistors. We also used silkscreen elements to resemble the spikes of a cactus scattered throughout the PCB. One of my takeaways from this collaborative project is learning how to create a schematic on Fusion.

Ideation: 10+ Speaker Design Sketches!

These are my 15 speaker design sketches. My three favorites are the mushroom one, the guitar/ukulele one, and the traffic light one. I love the traffic light one before I feel like there is so much cool potential to this idea, for example, I could make the red light go on and off. The guitar one is a cool design in general and I love music so it would go with that. I feel like the mushroom one could be cute too and a bit more abstract and interesting.

Speaker Design Post-it Feedback

A lot of my feedback reiterated a lot of my thoughts about my designs and how I thought the guitar would be challenging but the mushroom design could be interesting. Nobody mentioned my traffic light design, so it probably wasn't as interesting as the others. There were a few people who said that the jigsaw speaker could be cool despite not being one of my favorites.

Phase 2 Speaker Design Drawing

Here is my more detailed amplifier design. I think that this is the perfect design to challenge me, but also isn't unrealistic or overwhelmingly difficult or complicated. The speaker itself is pretty simple being just a box, but I think that incorporating my digital project will definitely enhance it. Also my fake living mushroom roof of the speaker will be fun to design. I think that the whole design and engineering process will healthily challenge my current skillset, which it is pretty low in my opinion.

Digital Modeled Enclosure Design

This is my speaker design rendered on Rhino. However this is only the wood part of my design, which is going to be press-fit together. The rest of the mushroom themed living roof will be put on top. I made holes for the speakers, lights, volume nob, power button, and charger.

Speaker Design Cardboard Prototype

This is my cardboard prototype for my mushroom themed speaker. The cardboard represents where the wood would be, but the mushrooms and living roof would be on top. The prototype also shows how my design will be press-fit together. I learned how to laser cut in the process of making my prototype. A modification that my design needs is that the holes on the top for my volume nob and power button need to be smaller.

Amplifier Circuit on Breadboard

After prototyping my amplifier circuit on the breadboard, I understand how important it is for specific connections to be correct in order to make the circuit work properly. Something that I have no idea what is in my circuit is the polarized electrolyte capacitor, but ChatGPT says, "A capacitor is an electronic component that stores electrical energy temporarily by holding an electric charge between two conductive plates separated by a dielectric (insulating material). A polarized electrolytic capacitor is a type of capacitor with high capacitance, designed for DC circuits, where it has distinct positive and negative terminals that must be connected correctly to function properly."

Amplifier PCB Schematic and Design

I worked with Nola on my Amplifier PCB design. These are screenshots of my schematic and board layout. I learned how to validate my connections between parts with the error check tool on fusion because every single part needs to be connected properly for it to work.

Printed Amplifier Circuit Board (Pre Soldering)

Completed Collaborative Shaped PCB Project

Nalin and I created a cactus shaped PCB with red LED lights. I am happy with the final product because it ended up being really small and cute.

Soldered Amplifier Circuit Board

Final Digital Project: LED Light Ring

Link to Github Gist

I created a light ring that changes colors from purple to cyan to yellow. This will eventually end up inside my speaker design.

Through this process I learned how to insert code from python into a microcontroller.

Enclosure Build Process

I am on track to finish my amplifier, I'm just adding final details like the moss on top and mushrooms.

Final Finished Amplifier

Reflection Questions:

What did you make?

I made a cute mushroom themed speaker.

Thinking about the work you created, what are you most satisfied with this semester?

I am satisfied with the ways in which I was able to make my ideas come to life. My design turned out exactly how I pictured it.

If you were to start over, knowing what you know, what would you do differently?

I would've made the top of my speaker out of acrylic so that my digital project LED lights could shine through the top.

What did you learn this semester that will likely still be with you 2 years from now?

I feel like I have gotten pretty good at soldering and I feel like it is memorable and a skill that I have further developed this semester.

My goal for this amplifier was to create a cute and aesthetic design that would relax me in times of stress. I feel like I fully met this goal and the design turned out exactly how I wanted.

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