Final Project Journal

The beginning is light.

The end is unifired darkeness.

The course of Re in the west.

The Dark Ages. Egyptian Amduat: The Book of the Hidden Chamber.

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

meet {Qadar _ قدر }( video) , a lovely clock in a shape of book that tills if we are in the morning, afternoon, evening, night or dawn by simply a push button that you press it.

Using the RTC module to detact the time of the day, the mini mp3 player module to insert data and the speaker to have the voice.

I was planning to make her work as a digital clock using seven segment , and an audiobook reader that I can change its volume with control knob, but I couldn't with the time frame that I have, and I'm describing my try and fail experience in the following with more details, and I'm planning to work on it again soon.

Photo from internet.

This project idea was inspired by my lovely friend, and her current needs of hearing the time insted of read it from a clock. While the design and the quote on the clock enclosure is mainly from ancient Egyptian calendar and afterlife concept, the coloring was very random by intention only to resemble a space.

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)

For designing my clock enclosure I used mainly fusion 360, and I statrted by creating the main part which contains the front, middle and the back parts as a one unite.

The lab machine maximum sheets capacity are 30*50 cm, so I make sure that my design is less than this with 490 * 240 mm.

After creating my outside shape I devide it to 3 section the front and the back with 175 *240 mm and the midele *140 240 mm on a living hinge wood style.

Then I made my press and fit design with 3.2 *25 mm dimensions for all my outside parts, and my T_ slot, screws and nuts with the help of this PDF T- slot link from week 2 lecture.

This photo copyright goes to Sting For Consultancy and Design personal planner for year 2019.

Then I made extrude to my design and add my ARDUINO, mdf player, seven segment, speaker, and 4 push button to measure their dimensions according to my design.

After finishing my outside design parts, I use image to DXF converter to convert some photos that I have to a DXF format to add it to my design as the lab computer refuse to add the photos at it self. The converter link

After finishing the main part, I choose to make another two parts to be fully as the top, side and the bottom together with the ankh symbol in the middle of them . I made the two parts using the same way above.

After fabricated the last two parts on the lab, it tearn out that the two parts is smaller that the main part and the living hinge at the curves of the top and bottom is not suitable to my main part.

SO I created another three parts design to fit the top, middle and bottom of my main part with the help of Eng. Amany, with a 173*85 mm for the top and bottom parts and with 240*85 for the middle part.And my press and fit, screw and T _ slots with the same dimensions as above mentioned dimensions.

This is my third try of creating the side parts , the second one wasn't assembled together with the screw and nuts or even the small flower, so I recreated this design and it was finaly the chosen one.

For designing my 3D parts of control knob and the encluser hand parts I used fusion 360 too. AS I craet my knobe based on potentiometer dimensions and then made extrude and extrude cut till I have this lovely knob.

This is my second 3d piece and my third hand design for the enclosure. I some how refused to end my project without a hand on it, so I created a circuit and trim it from the center and do extrude and then create another skitch on the half circuit body with 10 mm and extrude it again till I made it.

Photo from internet.

After rechecked the design with instructor Maha she advised me to change its parameters and the way of extrude so I did with her help and this is the final look that I printed on the 3D Prus.

The hand both sides dimensions are 124mm, the radius is 50 and the second line destance from the first one with 12 mm.

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 preparing the 3D printing:

After designed the 3D hand and control knob, I save it as .STL file extinction and import it on Ultimaker Cura .

I used Ultimaker Cura software to generate the G.code files, which can be executed by the 3D Printer. As I sited the desig on the rignt place, checking if the design need support or not and it needed a touching build plate one, and perform slicing and save it as a G code.

The Machine that I used was Original Prus I3 MK2S, with a black PLA Flament. Prusa I3 MK2S manual was what I used to operate the 3D printer as we have it since week 1.

I downloadthe .G code to the fab lab computer in order to start the printing process while choosing the filament color to be black ,I loaded the filament spool and make sure its power degree is 215 oc, checking the pre-heating and place of the filament to start the printing processing; I use the control knob to access to the main menu, and select my file that I named Rashida final 28 min / 3 grams for the control knob and Rashida hand 1 hour and 30 minute / 32 grams and press print from SD.

As a result of a multiple laser fabrication processes that I had to go through. I have a collection of videos that I added into my youtube channel here:

My 3D printing video of the 2 parts that I printed are her: 3D video.

The material that I used for laser cutting was:

Plywood sheet 3mm 30x50cm
paper Tape
Scraper
Pliers.
driller.
coloring pen.

for Prototyping assembling process:

Screws and nuts m3.
Drill machine.
Cutter.

After it I pressed run to run the machine after checking the speed, power and laser nozzle and do my track framing happite habit.

I did my fabrication for almost 5 time with the same process after changing my design to fit to gether with the flexbile wood and outside T_slots.

For my living hinge second time I used cutting speed 320 mm/s and power 68%.

For laser fabrication process:

After downloaded the RLD file to the Laser Cutter, I open it and defined which lines will be cut and which will be engraved.

The setting of the cutting for laser:

- cut speed 320mm/s.

- power 65%.

The setting of the cutting for the engraving:

cutting speed 300 mm/s.
power 68%.

scan speed 18 mm/s.
power 30%.

The ultimate laser cutting steps guide:

Open laser work program and import the DXF file and set the speed and power.
Download the file on the machine and rename the file.
Checking the power on the laser cutting machine (power it on).
Check the origin of the machine by controlling the arrows (up-down-right-left) and click on origin button to set the origin.
Open files on the machine and search for the named file to print and track the cut area.
Control the vertical distance of the bed to the laser handle to just fit a coin (from the side of the machine).
Select the file again from the machine and start the cut process.
Got your work done by connect pieces together and completed the connection by the scews and nuts.

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)

The following are the input and the action components that I used to create my project:

Input component are :

User input; Toggle push Button to make the sound on and off.
On _off switch to open and close the whole circuit.
Real time clock (RTC) module to control the speaker and the Mini MP3 Player module with SD card to till time while pressing the Toggle push buttons.

I was planing to do the following but I didn't have much time:

User input; Toggle push buttons to work as audiobook start, pause, previous and next buttons.
potentiometer as a control knob to control the sound level.

Output/ action component are:

speaker to till time while pressing buttons.
A Mini MP3 Player module with SD card to store the time of the day as morning, evening , afternoon or dawn.

I was planing to do the following but I didn'thave much time:

seven segment display to work as a clcok to till time in hours and minutes to the clock users.

Brain:

An Arduino board that act as a smart device's brain that processes the RTC module , MP3 player with speaker actions.

Power Management:

5 volt Adaptor and a Female dc power adapter.

Other used component:

Breadboard.
A bunch of Jumper wires.
A bunch of Resistors.

The components integrate together to form a smart syste that tills time as we are in the morning, afternoon, evening, midnight or dawn while press the upper bottom.

I was planning to make it work as audiobooks while pressing start, previous, next,or pause button. with a potentiometer to control the sound level from 1 to 30 degree and I worked so hard on the code but it didn't work, but I'm documenting my steps so ever.

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 project Power source are 5V DC adapter, To select the suitable power source for this project, I researched every component power requirements as following:

The 7-segments LED takes 5 volt.
Arduino board Uno3.35 to 12V.
The DFPlayer is 4.8V.
Speaker 10 volt with 10000 ohm resestor
RTC module voltage 2.7 ~ 5.5.

Project Programming

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

I used ARDUINO IDA for coding my project as I started by searching online on how to set a 4 pins seven segment common cathode.

This article press me article had helped me as it gives me a fine understanding of LEDs and how to control them, how Seven segment displays consist of 7 LEDs, works and how to code the 4 pins seven segment.

As articled I downloded SevSeg library to control the display. The SevSeg library works with single digit and multi-digit seven segment displays. You can download the library’s ZIP file from GitHub.

For RTC module I downloaded the RTC library

For the Mini MP3 Player module I downloaded its library from here RTC library.Then I created my MP3 audio tracks and then I wire the circuit as following:

This Schematics from internet is what I used to wire my MP3 module with a speaker.

For the RTC module wiring, I used this Schematics from internet as a reference.

After testing the Rtc, seven segment and speaker, and MP3 module code together, I started to companied the component together and I thought it's an easy task but it wasn't.So I asked for help and for almost 11 hours I try to make the code work alone, and with my instructor help.

At the end he advised me to end the project to this extend, and working towards assembly and documentation as I'm running out of time.

This is my circuit Schematics and simulation on fritzing:

This is the pins is for the 4 digit seven segment common cathode that I was working towards adding into my project, also this is the link for my reference project 7 segment article

Seven segment and RTC module code part 3

Seven segment and RTC module code part 5

Seven segment and RTC module code part 7

Seven segment and RTC module code part 1

Seven segment and RTC module code part 2

Seven segment and RTC module code part 4

Seven segment and RTC module code part 6

Seven segment and RTC module code part 8

For Mini MP3 Player module, RTC module, and speaker code that works to till time we used MP3 module data sheet and library,all the details are located there. and with the help of my instructor Eng. Ahmed I write the code; actually I helped in this part but the main work was his.

This is the main code details that works on my circite, the following are the steps that I toke:

I started by identifying the library of the mp3 module by downlode it from the tools and library mange.
Identifying the library of the RTC.
Identifying the library of the seven segment.
Identifying the library of the mini mp3 player module.

For downloading and Identifying the libraries above I have done the following:

- - - Download the library from Github and saving it in the libraries directory on your device.
    - Open Arduino IDE on your computer.
    - From Sketch tab , Include library, add .ZIP library.
    - From File tab and Examples you will find your library.

Identifying the integers of the push Button.
Open the DrfRotDFplayer mini Software Serial
Add the void printDetail ti identify the type and value.
Convert normal decimal numbers to binary coded decimal.
Open void setup() and a serial communication at 9600 bits of data per second.
Add if condition with a Serial.println to Prints data to the serial port.
Adding the push button as INPUT_PULLUP as he is a floating int so we added th PULLUP part.
Setting the volume value to be From 0 to 30.
Make the pushbutton pin an input pin.
Adding the if else condition if condition library reference for time frame.
byte hardwareConfig = COMMON_CATHODE;

sevseg.begin(hardwareConfig, numDigits, digitPins, segmentPins, resistorsOnSegments);

sevseg.setBrightness(90);

Wire.begin();

Those lines Working on the 4 digit 7 segment display with the RTC module to controll it to display Time seconds, minutes,hours, day of weeks, day of months, months, years in synchronies with my laptop on the seven segment 4 pins .
The case and break is for adding the seconds, minutes,hours, day of weeks, day of months, months, years on my serial monitor.
int buttonState = digitalRead(pushButton); you can check this website for more information here
Do a void loop to display the real-time clock data on the Serial Monitor every second and till we are in the morning , afternoon, evening, night; or dawn.
Adding the witch break case to print the following cases on the serial mentor: if the switch is true print" Time Out " on the serial mentor if not then break and print the other right condition. like "Stack Wrong", or "card Inserted" ,"Card Removed", "Card Online" and so on on the serial monitor.

The challenge was with the time frame and making the code work while syncing with the seven segment, I did solve the first challenge only, the second one is what I'm willing to do after graduation ):

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 1

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 2

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 3

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 4

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 5

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 6

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 7

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 8

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 9

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 10

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 11

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 13

The RTC, MP3 module and the speaker( final code ) part 12

This code is the final one with the seven segment, I believe the condition need to change to make the seven segment work but, and I'm planning to work on it soon.

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)

Her are {Qadar _ قدر }(press me video) in here final look after assembly.Even if she is not a perfect clock on the term of fabrication and function, but she's a lovely one; like destiny.

Testing components video; This video showing multiple trys that I go through to test my componants separately.

Also, These videos are a different testing videos for my experience powering and coding the following :

It was a disaster ):

NOTHING WORKS FROM THE FIRST, SECOND,THIRD or EVEN FOURTH TRY !!

Here are the Project integrated steps that I walked through in order to test and integrate my project Laser cute and 3 D printed / material parts:

After fabricating all the project laser cute parts, I started to assembly the parts together with screws and nuts, then I connected the main part with the base, middle and button parts.
After assembly the enclosure parts, I added the speaker, seven segment, RTC module, bush buttons, ARDUINO and all the components to found if it will fit or not.
I found out that I added the ARDUINO on the wrong side while doing the simulation on fusion 360, and the MP3 player module on GrabCAD website is a smaller than what I have and it won't fit. So I used a driller to create a new holes. Then I rechecked the wiring before adding it to the project enclosure.
After checking all the parts in the circuit and solving the problems that I faced I retested all functions again assembly it to the enclosure.

Here are the Project Tracker steps that I walked through in order to test and integrate my project:

I Tested the RTC module and display the time, date , day and year on the serial monitor.
I Tested the seven segment display with a dumb data on it.
I Merged the last two steps together while Display the time from the RTC on the seven-segment module.
I Wired and tested all the pushbuttons and Take readings from them.
I Connected the speaker with the MP3 player module and interface it with the Arduino board.
I programed and Tested the MP3 player module individually to play some sounds.
I Integrated the MP3 player module sound control with the push button readings to tell the time when the user presses the push button.
I Played some audiobooks from the mp3 player module according to a button pressed.
I Added some tangible push buttons for controlling the mp3 player module as forward, previous, stop and pause.
I Added potentiometer to control the mp3 player module volume.
I Connected the speaker with the MP3 player module and interface it with the Arduino board.
I Integrated the RTC and seven-segment display with the mp3 player module and push buttons.
I Tested the minimum features while Debugging and troubleshooting the functions.
I Tested the complete features and completed the Wire management.

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?

I actually asked for feedback form everyone that I meet, The fact That both theRTC module with the 4 digit seven segment and the MP3 module with speaker is all very new to me made me so wory. At some point the project isn't the same lovely interesting and innovative journey that I go through insted he becomes very annoying and frustrating one and that's worried me so much but I managed to be in till the end.

It not only the code , the fabrication too was very challenging, I learn through it alot. Ms. Amany and Ms. Noha are my guardian angels. I thought that this stress is so much for my mental and emotional health to handle, but there existence, helping and the funny hilarious time that we shared made me positive till the end.

Also, the creative, beautiful inside out Maha and my main group instructor Eng,Ahmed helped me so much as always from first day and till the end.

Also , I discussed my project challenges with my peers and I was blessed with a very good feadback that helped me so much .

while we mange to support each other till the final day. I was happy being able to help my colleagues by giving suggestions and feedback throughout the fabrication times, as it takes me more than 31 hours of redesigning and fabrication on the lab only. And it makes me closely in contact with more collegues than mine from G1 and G2 groups.

Maha and Amany are my super hero's, I was impresed with how much they try to assist and help me through the way in the designing , fabrication and 3D printing. They were there for me giving valid tips and tricks to solve some challanges that I had with dimensions, designing and overleaping lines that I made.

Noha the very amazing fab lab specialist and my new friend in crimes Shams advised me to change the screws outside dimension and redesign and fabricate these parts to be from smooth to a rectangle one, and this is the very best advice that I could share it with everybodey how is rying to design living hinge wood.

Here what I mean, insted of this design

This one is much better, safer, stronger and will help very much than the previous one, while assemble and mount the component.

In addition to this, I wasn't sure how to power the circuit with the 5 volte adopter, so I asked for help from my colleague Abdul-Fattah and he send me this photo with audio that helped me alot, and as always I'm thankfull for his help.

A special thanks goes to the beautiful, lovely and creative Salma's time and music choose, I loved how we helped each other while listening to Umm Kalthoum during our fabrication and troubleshooting time.

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 got stuck almost at every step of the way, the designing made me rewatched week 2 and 3 in order to make sure that I'm doing the right thing.

Also, I watched alot of video and read tons of articles about everything that I could found in order to improve my understanding about coding, designing, fabrication and electronic power management.

Ms. Menna Elbadry was my heroine for the designing part, she advised me to make the living henge bigger than what I was planning too. This advice came after alot of mathematical discussion, but it was a very valid point to me and it makes the project bigger than what I planned to, but it's fine with me as it's a prototype for learn.

I was insisted to make a hand with a living henge wood and I did it twice.

But it didn't work !!

please , add extra attention wile designing living hange and if you could do it with INKSKIP software program then do it. It refused to work on my lab, Ms.Amany lab and my colleague Shimaa lab too.

I try to download the living henge extension as advicd from Eng. Mohanad Mohsen on my laptop, and Ms. Amany lap too with her permission. And it didn't work but if you could try I believe it may work with anybody of you insallah , as I hope.

Here are some of the videos , articales and PDFs that I used, these are not all but it helps a lot:

The biggest mistake that I hade was designing the living henge without watching online totorial first. It would be much easier to do it on sheet metal so I Could flip it and do the assembly part on fusion with much ease. In adation to that I'd love to make sure the arduino is on the ight side on fusion while doing the extrude cut part of its holes , cause I hade to use the Drill machine to do it again.

I add some glue to my inside part of living henge as it got broken, and I had leaved it on a flat surface. A fine part of my flexible wod from the middle got damaged. Even after adding other tiny part of flex-wood, coloring it and using Scraper it still there.

So make sure to be extra carefull with your design cutted parts!! Don't be like Rashida .

On Saturday, 25 of September I was straggling with the seven segment and RTC module code as it refuse to be sited with the correct time and date. So I attended Eng. Sherif Rashwan session

after my session ends asks for more advice and help, and he helped me in a very interactive way as he gives me small tasks to go through it and contains to rechesk my progress multiples of time till it partly worked and thats how I understand the concept better.

One Monday 27, I was straggling to fit the 3D hand part that turned out to be too big for what is suppose to be, we don't know why but we assumed that we fabricated the wrong .G code file, cause I redesign this exact part with instructor Maha help, and she is the one that added the .STL file into cura after my insist to make sure that I didn't change the dimensions by mistake.

And here I'm trying to use glue and goes from one instructor to another, asking for help or better solution, till they all advised me to re fabricate the upper part, so it would fit the bush button too as it was in a bigger demintion than it suppost to be.

Ps.The grabcad software step files for the seven segment, speaker and the mp 3 module is not the same dimensions as mine, so if you gonna use them make sure the are in a the rignt dimensions.

In the same exact date the code made me crazy as the push button refuse to worke in synchronies with the RTC module, MP3 player module and speaker to till time while pressing it. As always I asked for help and my instructor Eng. Ahmed Ibrahim helped me with the code till it works. firstly we read signals from the push button and then we started to work with the if logic to make it works from 6 till 9 as morning; 14 till 16 as afternoon; 20 till 23 as evening; 20 till 23 as night; and 3 till 5 as dawn.

special thanks for Eng. Saeed for this lovely photo,that he takes at our final online lecture and for leading this diploma in a very organized, creative and detailed way.

I'm gratefully thanks for the media specialist lady, whom I couldn't remember her name for the lovely photos that she tokes for me on th lab.

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 do my complete, nice to have functions, and I would redesign the enclosure to be more fitting to the clock components.

Also, I will make sure that I redo the living hinge with the rignt dimention without extra overleaping lines.

Also I loved this design so much, so I'm planning to do it in a 3D model soon.

Final Project Design Files

Qadar code [ARDUINO IDE].ino

Qadar control knob[.STL]

Qadar hand [.STL]

Qadar middle, top an bottom parts [.DXF]

Qadar main part [.DXF]

Qadar schematic [fritzing ]

Qadar [FUSION 360. F3D ]

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