Final Project Journal

Project Ideation

1- Tell us about the idea of your project. Why do you care about this? What were you inspired by? Include images and videos of similar projects

The project is box holding Arduino inside it, It does nothing, Literally :D. it is in a bad mood and all it wants to be left alone.

So, try to make it happy, try your luck with the switch.

It's gonna be fun to make this useless box.

I've been inspired by several useless box projects on instructables, here are some links:

Arduino Useless BoxArduino Useless Box: What's in the box???Is it doing something???Is it going to hurt me???Just hit the switch guys!!! Nothing will hurt you, maybe...Really now, this project is about a box with an Arduino in it. It does nothing. Literally. It is in a bad mood and all it…

Useless BoxUseless Box: Interested in making a useless box? Building this project was a really fun experience for me. Having very little prior knowledge about circuits, making this simple gadget was a great introduction to circuits for me. And, it's really fun to play with…

Project Construction

2- Explain the CAD process of your project. How did you use the software to design your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

All the parts of the construction are wood that had been cut using the laser cutter machine.

So, all the parts were designed using fusion 360 then each sketch was exported as dxf extension so it can be imported in RDWorks.

All the files are attached below, it can help for any further info considering the design

Right wall

Back wall

Front wall

Door

Left wall

Horn 1 (door lifting)

Horn 2 (finger horn)

all extruded parts

3- Explain the fabrication process of your project. How did you use the machine to fabricate your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

For the fabrication I've used RDWorks, and the laser cutter machine.

RDWorks software

3mm Ply Wood

Laser Machine

After exporting the sketches as dxf. files, it had been modified on RDWorks, to be prepared for laser cutting.

The cutting speed 20 m/min

and power 65% of the machine

And for the scanning the speed was 350 m/sec, with 23% Power.

RDWorks nesting

Since that I still have much time considering the laser cutter and the wooden sheets as well,

I've cut the first version, as just outside enclosure, I wanted to make sure that all the slots and mates are well made without any problem, beside imagination of the parts and functions and testing the torque of the motor with the door.

After getting the final design considering all the mount slots for the components, I've used the second wooden sheet and cut the box.

And mounting the components on it, testing the wiring positions.

Project Electronics & Power Management

4- Describe your electronic circuit. What are the input and action components? What is the function of each? How do the components integrate together to form your smart system? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

I've used TinkerCAD to design and simulate the circuit. it was simple.

And for building the real circuit, I've used these components:

Arduino UNO, Power Supply 9V, 2 Mini Servo Motors, Toggle Switch, On\Off Switch, small breadboard,, Jumpers.

Wiring diagram on TinkerCAD

The circuit wiring was simple, at first I had to simulate it using tinker cad and make sure that the two servos are doing well.

Screen showing the simulation

5- What is your power source? How did you select the suitable power source for your project? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

The circuit power source is Arduino, the motors are powered and controlled from Arduino since it needs 5 Volts.

The Arduino needs from 7 to 12 volts to be powered from out power supply.

So, the most suitable choice was the 9 Volts power supply.

9 Volts power supply

Project Programming

6- Describe the code of your project. How did you program each function of the project?

First of all, just after assembling the components within the enclosure and wiring the circuit, the two motors needed to be adjusted according to their angles.

So, I've used simple code to make this happen and till i have successful try

#include <Servo

After adjusting the two servos angles, here is the final code.

The main structure of the loop in this code that when the toggle switch pin reads ground signal goes on to make 9 different ways to hit the switch, this process is controlled by counter variable.

This counter is from 1 to 9, each number refers to different function.

after the void loop, there are the nine functions.

Full Code

Project Integration & Testing

7- Demonstrate with text and visuals how did you integrate the project’s modules together? What are the testing results? (Include a Demo video separately, showing a proof of functionality)

Finally, after making sure that the code is well functioned with the two servos, attaching the components to the wooden enclosure, and make the wiring, it worked as planed ^_^

This video is showing the testing result using the simple first code.

1st vid.MOV

Sharing & Collaboration

8- Did you ask for feedback? What are the ideas that others have contributed or suggested? What was someone else’s idea that you built upon? How did you help your peers? How did your peers help you?

after I had my first enclosure, I asked for feed back for the scale of the box and the hinge type.

also I had help from the instructor, my servo had problem in it's set of gears so it couldn't give the right action.

Mini Servo

Overcoming Challenges

9- When you got stuck, what/who did you turn to? At what point did you have to pause to research or learn more before moving on? What are some mistakes, pitfalls, or challenges that others can avoid if they were doing this project?

I had faced some problems in the project

one of them was that I couldn't mount the servos in their brackets because the wires of the servos :'(

I had to use the file set that in the lab to make mini slot for the wire so it can pass

File set

Also, I had this horns problem, the first horn was shorter than needed, so i had to redesign it, and the second horn was unable to push the switch, it was sliding on it, so it needed to have more thickness, so it can push.

There was another problem with the metal gear servo, I had this problem in two servos, the gear set was not able to give the same action every time, so I got new plastic one, it went great after that :D

Future Work

10- If you had more time, what is one thing you would change/ Do next in your project?

If i had more time, I would make more updates to the enclosure to make it better constructed and easier to be understood and assembled.

Final Project Design Files

Useless Box.rar

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