Embedded Files
For my groups Candy Land Project we were prompted to make tricked out gingerbread houses with micro-controllers and bit buster. My group and i brainstormed on many ideas like Big Ben, cathedrals, Food trucks, but we finally decided on a Carousel. Rather than building a traditional Gingerbread house we decided to make a Gingerbread Carousel, inspired by Pinterest; my group wanted to make a full functioning carousel with moving horses and and a spinning platform. my role as a group member is designer, which entails creating anIllustrator file, laser cutting a cardboard prototype, and helping assemble the Gingerbread final structure.
Inspiration...
Inspiration...
A ginger bread carousel found on Pintrest.
Illustrator File
Illustrator File
My first job as Designer was to create an illustrator file with all of the parts of pieces my group and I would need cut out to make our Gingerbread Carousel. I started off by discussing with my group all of the pieces we would need, and then I began tracing an actual carousel horse from the internet with the pen tool in illustrator. After I made 2 identical circles with a 6inch horizontal and vertical diameter for the lego motor to sit in between. Afterwards I made a slightly larger circle for the spinning platform of the carousel, along with 14 various sized rectangular planks acting as spacers and support beams.
Cardboard Prototype
Cardboard Prototype
when the Illustrator file was finished, I then cut the shapes out by using the laser cutter with cardboard. After running the laser cutter twice, my group and I began to assemble our prototype.
Microcontroller w/ Bit-buster
Microcontroller w/ Bit-buster
Cardboard Carousel horses
Cardboard Carousel horses
6 inch diameter circles attached to lego motor.
6 inch diameter circles attached to lego motor.
After cutting the horses out of Cardboard my group and I realized that the Gingerbread may be to brittle to be laser cut with all of the detail in the horse without breaking. Instead we decided to laser cut the carousel horses out of 3mm MDF.
TinkerCad
TinkerCad
Besides from creating the illustrator file and using a lego motor to make the carousel spin, my group and I decided to use a linear actuator motor to make the horses for the carousel move u and down. Initially I thought we could power 4 separate linear actuators on one micro controller, but instead my group and I thought out a innovate design to move all of the horses only using one linear actuator motor. Our idea was to create a custom linear actuator motor with a circular ring going through it. By glueing on all of the horses onto the ring with one motor it would create an illusion that all of horses were moving, but really only one horse is moving with the motor and the rest are just attached to the same system. to do this I created a ring (diameter 152. 40mm) in Tinker Cad that traveled through open spaces in the motor. after creating the File I 3D printed it in Cura.
3D printing
3D printing
Not only did I 3d print my group linear actuator, but I also 3D printed the roof of our carousel too. I used a ring and an ellipse cone to make the triangular roof in Tinker Cad and then printed it. While the roof was 3D printing, it wasn't hollowed out, so we stopped the printing and left it as it was and decided to just decorate the top of the carousel.
Final Assembly
Final Assembly
The last phase of my groups project was to assemble everything together, most of which included hot gluing pieces to the base of our carousel. We needed to glue our motor with horses onto the spinning base, our center support beam, micro-controller cavity, and lastly our roof. Putting all of the finishing touches onto our carousel was the most nerve racking part because there are so many moving pieces. We started by glueing our micro- controller cavity down to the base and then on top of that we glued our center support beam and around those pieces we glued our linear actuator motor and carousel horses. Before we glued down our roof we decided to add red and white straws to the base to make the horses look as if they were moving up and down in the straw. Glueing on the roof was the scariest part of assembly because it was very heavy and if the weight was not centered it would fall down, but luckily it worked out. My group and I faced one last challenge before finishing assembly, our carousel worked because it spun and the horses moved up and down pretty well, but the bases rotation was very wobbly. To counteract the wobbling we added a support beam under the spinning platform, leaving a little gap between the beam and base so that when the base wobbled it would have an even buffer to balance it out.
Kate Hazlett
To find more information on about the coding behind our project here is the link to our Programmers portfolio.
https://sites.google.com/view/katesmakerportfolio/interactivity
Pseudocode → Troubleshooting → Code for Micro:bit with comments
Dyre Vizcarra
To find more information on about the building process behind our project here is the link to our Builders portfolio.
https://sites.google.com/view/dvizcarra-eng/circuits
Design Circuit → Integrate Circuit with Gingerbread → Design Robust Connections
Danny Axelrod
To find more information on about the our brainstorming process, build schedule, and final assembly of our project her is the link to our Project Manager's portfolio.
https://sites.google.com/view/daxelrod/circuits/gingerbread-carousel-project
Internal Schedule → Coordinate Documentation → Communicate between roles
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