Ashton Wang

One design strength that I have is having accurate plans and making sure that all the parts will fit together
One design weakness that I have is that I'm not very creative and oftentimes take a much longer time to ideate.
At least three things I want to commit to in the documentation of my learning and projects:
1. Taking multiple photos of the process instead of only having photos of the finished product
2. Keeping my page organized and uncluttered
3. Writing descriptions that can clearly explain each image.

Collaborative PCB Design

We chose design of a duck with flames behind it. We chose it because we thought it would look cool, especially if we could make LEDs in the flame flicker with a microcontroller.

Collaborative PCB

We made a duck with flames in the back. The LED lights in the flames will be programmed with the IC attached on the back of the duck.
I worked on this project with Hayden.
One thing that I will remember from printed circuit board design is that traces can go on both the back and the front of the board. Another thing that I will remember is to avoid trying to designing organic shapes in Fusion.

Ideation Sketches

Post-it Feedback

The feedback was split between liking the lamp and vault ideas. I want to remember that the people who liked the vault design liked the mechanical portion of it which means that if I were to make it I should emphasize that aspect of it.

Speaker Design Phase 2

I think that this is an excellent design to design and build because it will look pretty cool with all visible gears and mechanics inside of it. I'm challenging my skill set by including lots of mechanical parts, especially the gears inside, which are not a part of engineering that I have a lot of experience in.

3D Modelling Progress

Up to this point, my 3D modelling has mainly been focused on prototyping the Iris doors which have been much more mathematically complex than I expected. The remaining 20% is adding gear teeth to the large orange rings, so that the key slot can drive both doors.

Cardboard Prototype

My idea is to have the speakers behind the two gear rings. The central gear will have a keyhole and turn the two outer gears, opening the doors and revealing the speakers. I learned from my prototype that the legs need to be made really strong, otherwise they will buckle outwards and collapse. I will probably modify the legs a bit because of the strength issues and because I don't like how they look.

Amp Circuit Breadboard

I understand the potentiometer better after working with it.
The "Isolated" part of the Isolated DV Converter was a complete mystery to me. According to Google's summary the isolated just means that the input and outputs are isolated which removes electrical noise and protects the lower voltage side of the circuit

Amp PCB Design and Schematic

I worked with William on this PCB. Something that I learned about circuit design is that larger traces allow for better audio quality.

Unsoldered Amplifier PCB

First Shaped PCB

The original idea was a duck in fire
I worked with Hayden
I am mostly happy with the product.

Enclosure Progress

I have finished laser cutting all parts and assembling the front side of the enclosure. I currently need to 3d print and assemble the box that goes behind the front plate.

Soldered Amplifier Circuit

Final Amplifier

The goal for my final amplifier was to be able to better my understanding of mechanical mechanisms and transfer of power through gear mechanisms. This goal inspired this vault design because the keyway drives the two "vault doors" using gears and the internal switch that is attached to the keyway is also triggered using a cam.

Reflection Questions:

My final product is a speaker where the music shuts off or turns on depending on the direction of the keyhole. I implemented this by having a visual shutoff (the flaps on the front) and a digital shutoff attached to the keyhole that cuts power to the circuit.

I am most satisfied with my implementations of the doors/flaps. The designs for the flaps were inspired by the irises seen on some cameras and I spent a significant amount of my time understanding the mechanism and making it more space efficient and strong enough to be made out of plastic.

If I were to start over, I likely would have spent more time thinking about the hardware (screws, plastics, wires) I used because I had to revise my gear ratios and mechanisms multiple times to work with what I had. Instead, it would have been much easier if I had a design and then bought hardware according to the design's requirements. Additionally, I likely would not have used clear acrylic, because fingerprints and any other marks show very clearly and I found that to be slightly annoying.

One thing that I learned this semester that I will remember for a long time is to stay far away from analog hardware, especially audio. I learned that audio circuits are very prone to problems and minor issues will cause very noticeable differences especially in audio quality.

There is one part of my original design that I did not finish, however, it was an intentional decision. I originally planned to have the keyway also control the volume by attaching a Geneva drive and a potentiometer, however, after having so much audio quality problems I decided to bypass the potentiometer in my circuit altogether to have a stabler sound output.

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