Ilana Zimmerman

Hello Post

Strength: One of my design/engineering strengths is CAD, especially on onshape.

Area for Growth: One of my less developed design/engineering skills is coding and persisting in coding problem solving.

I want to commit to:

Take lots of good quality pictures of my process.
Write comprehensible descriptions.
Organizing my page well.

PCB - Designs by Ilana

A flask with some chemical solution (which lights up) shooting out of it.
A stopwatch which uses LED's to track time after when a button is pressed.
A cloud with lightning shooting out of it in which the lightning and also the cloud light up.

PCB - Designs by Prin

A cat with light up whiskers, ears, and a tongue.
A whale with light up water, fins, and a tail.
A bird with a light up eye, nose, and tail.

PCB - Final CAD

The outline of our PCB will be the cloud with lightning shooting out of it pictured to the right.

Rationale: We wanted our PCB to have two parts (ie. whale + water coming out of the blowhole, cloud + lightning). We were also interested in creating something natural or inspired by natural phenomena. Prin was inspired by animals, so all her designs are of different species of animals, and I was inspired by a variety of things, from chemistry to technology. In the end, we both liked our own idea, I liked my cloud and Prin liked her whale. It was tough to decide, so we flipped a coin, and the cloud + lightning bolt design won!

PCB - Final Schematic and Circuit Board

Prin and I made a cloud PCB. It has a base of a yellow circuitboard with a white silkscreen over the cloud to distinguish the cloud from the lightning. There are 12 LEDs, 6 that light up yellow for the lightning, and 6 that light up white for the cloud. There is a switch which activates the white LED's and while the switch is on you can click a button to activate the yellow LEDs and make them flash like lightning. I will defenitely remember how to convert and import a BMP after this as I probably spent over an hour working on it.

Speaker Designs - Favorites

Speaker Designs - Extras

Feedback Post Its

Generally a lot of people liked my headphone idea but Mr. Kleindolph prefered my vieny hands. There was some concern about the dificulty of my infinity idea as well. Also some people though it might be hard to incorporate all of my functional ideas for the headphones.

Phase 2 Design

Why do you believe this is an excellent design to meet your growth goals?

I think that this meets my growth goals because I think that it will be a good challenge to make it really well so that all of the components come together really easily and so that it actually looks like a pair of headphones.

How are you challenging your current skill set?

I am challenging my skill set by creating headphones with a soft head rest thing (it will have a layer of fabric/foam to make it comfortable to wear. Also by having two modes, one headphones mode and one speaker mode. Also by having the headphones actuate similar to real headphones.

Phase 3 Design

So after some consideration, I changed my design to reflect my love of gears. This design has an open top but sides that are closed off by acrylic. the speakers face upwards and all of the electronics is contained in the bottom grey box which has a removable subsection, making the electronics accessible. Red Helical gears spin (using ballbearings) on shafts which are superglued in to divets in the acrylic. I still need to CAD an attachment mechanism for the electronics enclosure and to add the ballbearings to my CAD. I might spray paint the 3d prints but am not sure.

Phase 4 Prototype

Here is a quick laser cut prototype of my speaker. Since its gonna be 3d printed its not the most accurate, but it gets the idea across.

Amp Circuit

I now understand that in integrated circuit is not a computer because it always does the same stuff - like there is no code involved.

Something that was a complete mystery to me was how an inductor works and I learned that it acts kind of like an inductor in my circuit except it cancels high frequencies, unlike a capacitor which cancels the low ones.

Amp PCB

I worked with Coleton on my printed circuit board. I learned how to assign a ground layer to my circuitboard to make the continuity of the board, and therefore the sound quality, better.

Digital Project Idea

My digital project will be completely separate from my speaker. I want to create two old tv looking screens that communicate with each other over the internet so that I can send a simple message to my brother (who’s at college) and vis versa. They might also display the local time in the other microcontrollers location. I will use two of the microcontrollers that have screens. I might try to add a notification sound, in which case I would need some sort of very simple (probably piezo) speaker.

Soldered Circuitboard

Prin and I originally sought to make a cloud and lightning shaped circuitboard. Our goal was for it to light up the clouds when a flip is switched, and then light up the lightning bolt also when a button is clicked. We also wanted to distinguitsh the lightning from the cloud using a silkscreen. I think that the silk screen turned out really well and I really like the overall shape of our circuitboard. Additionally, I didn't originally think about the internal wires which you can see on the lightning, but I think that they look really cool and "lightningy." The button and switch system works, but I don't love how much the clouds dim when you turn on the lightning. I think that maybe something in our circitry could have been better to avoid that although I'm not sure what. the cloud almost turns off when the lightning turns on, which was not intentional. Overall though, I'm definitely happy with the product.

Back of Soldered Circuitboard

Front of Soldered Circuitboard - Unlit

Front of Soldered Circuitboard - Lit

Soldered Amplifier Circuit

Here is my first soldered amplifier circuit with my digital project, which I later removed.

Enclosure Build Process

I have soldered the entire circuit and fabricated all of the necesary pieces. All that is left is to glue some stuff in place and maybe make the seam between the back and front of the toilet slightly less pronounced. Also, I have decided to make a second toilet speaker. I have fabricated most of it but still need to print out some of the smaller pieces. I also need to attach the power jack and potentiometer to my second circuit.

Enclosure Build Process

The goal for my amplifier was to create a realistic looking toilet that turns on when I lift the lid and uses the flusher to change the volume. I was able to make exactly that! Plus I added a charger on the back of the toilet. I am most satisfied with how good my toilet model is. I think that that was one of the hardest parts and the thing that I have had the least experience with (realistic modeling). This semester I learned that spray paint is not the answer with a moving mechanism because it peels off in an ugly way when it is scraped, which is exactly what opening and closing my toilet does. I will also remember how to use calk and that it is a great tool to smoothen a print. If I were to redo my toilet, I would reprint it with a thicker wall thickness (so the infill patern is less visible) and be more slow and deliberate with the calk. Also, I would print it in the same color and not spray paint it. I would also fix the model so that there is not an almost whole in it and maybe make a better modeled, more satisfying locking in place for when the toilet is open vs. closed.

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