JOURNAL

「Week 5」

Ideation

Tell us about your assignment's idea for this week. Why do you care about this idea? What inspired you? (Please include images or links to sources of inspiration)

This week, I WANTED TO MAKE... ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Electric Mixer

I love coffee, Who doesn't? But you know what I love more? a well made espresso with milk, that's what you call good vibes.

However, an espresso with no milk frothing is NOT good vibes.
Which is why, I want to create my very own portable electric mixer!

Tool Chain

Which software/machines/materials did you use in the assignment? Why?

SOFTWARE

TINKERCAD:

Used to design and simulate the complete circuit.

MATERIALS

🔹 ELECTRICAL Components 🔹

9V Power supply: Powers the circuit.
Motor: Action output, Spins the mixer to create delicious frothing.
LED (Green): Action output to indicate power on.
Resistor 1k Ω: for LED current limiting
On/Off switch: Input to power the circuit on or off.
Small Breadboard: To connect the components together.
Crocodile & Jumper wires: To connect the components together.

🔹 CRAFT Components 🔹

Cardboard: To build the structure body.
Cutter: To cut the cardboard into the needed shape.
Sellotape: To hold the body & components together.
Recycled mixer shaft: Attached to the motor directly through fitting.

Design/Preparation Process

Explain the design and/or preparation process of your assignment. How did you use the tool or software to design and/or prepare your assignment before fabrication/implementation?

Step by step process to create the circuit in tinkercad

(Follow along if you want to make the same circuit)

Add the parts:
drag an Power Supply, Hobby Gearmotor, Slideswitch, LED, 1k Ω Resistor, position them neatly.
In this project, we need a 9V Power supply to effectively power the Motor, as it we need speed to effectively mix our coffee.
Wire the Power Supply (9V):

VCC → Breadboard's (+)
GND → Breadboard's (-)

Wire the motor:

VCC → Breadboard's 5V
GND → Switch's VCC

Wire the LED (with resistor on cathode):

Anode (long leg) → Breadboard's 5V
Cathode (short leg) → 1k Ω Resistor → Switch's VCC

Now the Switch should be connected to both the Motor & LED in parallel, which is the optimal way to connect them because it will give both of them 9V. Now we just need to close the circuit by connecting the Switch's Common with the breadboard's (-)

DemoVideo.mp4

Working demo, find the Tinker cad project here

Development/Implementation Process

Explain the development/implementation process of your assignment. How did you use the machine/tool to manufacture or implement the design of your assignment?

real life implementation:

I placed the breadboard and connected the 9V battery: positive to the + rail, negative to the - rail.
I mounted the gear motor and connected its positive lead to the + rail. I wired its negative lead to one side of the slide switch.
I set up the LED with a 1kΩ resistor on its cathode, and wired that side also to the switch. The anode went to the + rail.
I connected the other side of the switch back to the - rail, so both the motor and LED were in parallel. This way they each received the full 9V when the switch was flipped.
I tested it: flipping the switch lit the LED and spun the motor at full speed.
The circuit works, Now I'll attach the recycled mixer part to the motor
I cut a piece of cylinder cardboard & inserted the components in.
Then I made a hole for the On/Off switch, to be able to access it from outside.
I secured the structure and components with sellotape.
I tested it again to make sure no jumper wires disconnected. all components work well, Implementation successful!

And after assembling the project, then housing it in cardboard, this was the final result:

VID-20250829-WA0001.mp4

Community of Learning

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?

My friend suggested to use a large Gearmotor as it has more speed and would allow the mixer shaft to easily fit in.

Overcoming Challenges

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 assignment?

I had previously used a 5V power supply to power my components, which worked fine with my LED, but my motor was very slow.
I switched with 9V (make sure to use 1k ohm resistor for your LED instead of 220 ohm if you do transition to a more powerful supply), which thankfully worked much better.

Also, for the first two hours of implementation the circuit simply did not work, even though the connections were the exact same as the one in Tinkercad's, I was stubborn and thought I didn't need to use an Avometer to diagnose the problem, a major pitfall that wasted a lot of time. Once I did use it, out of frustration, It became glaringly obvious that some parts are not connected well, and that the LED's polarity is flipped...
Don't be stubborn, an Avometer is your friend.

Final Project

How can you use the skills and knowledge that you've acquired this week in your final project?

The knowledge I gained of circuits and how to connect components optimally will certainly help me build my final project's circuit.

WOW!

What is the coolest thing that you've learned this week? What is something that you will never forget from this week?

Weekly Digest [OPTIONAL]

Tell us about any other cool things that you've made this week: in the Hands-on activity, tutorial examples, exercises, or any other cool mini-project that you tried out aside from the assignment.

Assignment Design Files

Tinkercad Link

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