Emory Temple-Asheim

A design/engineering strength and area for growth, at least three things I want to commit to in the documentation of my learning and projects.

A strength of mine is working independently on my own while challenging myself, and two areas for growth are collaborating well with my peers and moving slowly and methodically.
Three things I want to commit to in the documentation of my learning are:
1. Explaining my design decisions more thoroughly
2. Including pictures from throughout the process, not just the finished product
3. Putting photos in context so one can fully understand the content

PCB Design Ideas

We chose the hourglass. We will use the lights to show sand. We will program the lights to animate. We chose it because it seems original!

Shaped PCB Design

Gwen and I designed an hourglass. There are 12 lights, with 7 along the bottom and 5 dropping through the neck. A microcontroller will animate the falling of the "sand." I will remember putting all the lights on the board design-- space was super limited and it was very hard to wire everything while ensuring lines didn't cross and no components were on top of each other.

10 Ideation Sketches

Post-It Feedback

Speaker Drawing

Not final. Still have a lot of work to do. Not great at drawing either. Dimensions TBD based on how the speakers look; I have a much easier time figuring that out in a 3d model.

I'm not sure this is an excellent design. The internal volume for sound is bad, the proportions might end up looking a little weird, and the stereo is going to be bad given how close together the speakers are. But it is what it is; hopefully once I model it it'll come together.

This is challenging my current skill set! I'm going to learn a lot about fabricating and designing and while I don't think I'll learn too many new skills, this is all about strengthening and practicing skills I'm not overly familiar with, for instance 3d printing, CAD design, etc.

音 Speaker Model

This is my speaker, designed to look like the chinese and japanese character 音. It is mainly a 3d printed body with MDF front. There are holes within it to allow for a larger sound cavity and to run cables. The top part serves as a button/interactive component.

Cardboard Prototype

What is your idea?

What did you learn from your prototype?

Does your design need modifications?

This is my cardboard prototype, the character 音. The top will be a button, there will be lights out the holes in the back, and the speakers are the two dots on top. 音 means "sound" in chinese and japanese. Prototyping 3d-printed components with cardboard is hard! Creating the depth is laborious and imprecise, and there's no good way to test some parts. I'm just going to have to hope for the best. However, my design worked out, and it needed basically no modifications as far as I could tell. I guess we'll see...

Amp Circuit Breadboard

Now that I've prototyped it, I understand how the bluetooth circuit works and how there are two different pieces sending data and needing power.

I had never heard of a ferrite bead before and I had no idea what it did. ChatGPT tells me it's used to filter out unnecessary electronic "noise," sort of like a frequency-dependent resistor. (source)

Amp PCB Design/Schematic

I worked with Cillian to design this PCB. The most interesting part was the ground plane-- I hadn't known about that before and it was a new component to use. Overall, I appreciated the practice designing another circuit board.

Amp PCB (Pre-Solder)

Shaped PCB

Gwen and I originally had the idea to design an hourglass-shaped PCB and make animate the sand running out. It ended up being a little wider than expecred to fit all the connections, but otherwise, everything worked; I think it came out very well.

Enclosure Build Process

At this point, I'm mostly done with building my enclosure. I've finished my 3D printed parts and wired all of my electronics. Everything (except for the top button) has been fitted properly and installed.

While it's mostly in one piece now, there are still some things I need to finish. I need to fix the button on top (the sizing was incorrect), glue the entire thing together (it's just press-fit right now), install the front wood paneling with magnents, and if time allows, make the programming for the lights on the back a bit more interest

Amp Circuit (Soldered)

Finished Amplifier

Goals?

What did you make?

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

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

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

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