October - December| 2018

This project was one of the hardest project I've ever done, not just in sheer technical difficulty, but also intensity. Over 4 weeks, we needed to design, prototype, and make a fully functional interactive game to share some aspect of environmental awareness. This endeavor required the union of electrical, software, and mechanical design. As a group, we decided to focus on making the home more environmentally friendly by making a game of turning off room lights, saving water, and installing efficient insulation.

Link to Full Project Website: ME218A Project Website

During the ideation phase, we brainstormed all sorts of ways we could teach the user about being more environmentally conscious. Once we decided on our direction, we started by dividing the project into potential subsystems.

Each member was responsible for designing the circuitry for their subsystem, write pseudo code for the software, and generally think of what physical components would be necessary (LEDS, handles, etc). My subsystem was the House LED activity where users would press buttons if an LED turned on to turn them off.

After this initial design phase, we decided to divide major work into pairs to be more efficient. My major role for much of the project was physical structure design and realization, and circuit integration. I designed the entire physical structure which included the solid modeling and porting to Adobe Illustrator for interfacing with the laser cutters at the Stanford PRL (Product Realization Lab). The circuit integration involved taking all the individual subsystem circuits, such as mine pictured below, and integrating them together on one movable board. Then, with the finalized circuit boards, I integrated them with the structure.