Today we learned how to use the myo device and use it to make a light light up. Then, Libby and I started to work on the box for our final product. We decided to make it similar to the prototype by having two compartments, one for the lights and underneath that a space for the wires. Although, this time we won't have the potentiometers, so we wont need an extra space in the box to put those in. In addition, we decided that instead of notching all the parts we're going to put support boxes inside the box so that we can just place the pieces needed instead of notching them into place. We started to laser print but ran out of time at the end of the day so tomorrow we will continue to cut out the pieces and put it together and finish the light board.  

Today Libby and I finished up the box for the lightboard prototype. After cutting the wood part of it and trying to put it together we thought one piece's notches were off but after reprinting that piece we realized that we had originally put the box together wrong and the first piece we cut actually was right. We also realized after cutting initially that we had drawn the acrylic wrong on rhino and made it from the inside of the box and not the outside corners. Luckily we realized this before cutting the acrylic. Once we cut the acrylic we realized that when we redrew it we forgot to add holes for the potentiometers, so we went back to the laser cutter and drew 2 holes and moved the acrylic so they would be cut in the general areas we wanted them in. Then, we put the lights and wiring on the box and began to put it together. Tomorrow we will start our final product.

Today we built our prototype for our light board. Keziah created the box on Rhino and then printed it. On fusion I created the two knobs that will go on the lightboard and control the lights, which is similar to an etch it sketch. Jess finished up the code for the LED lights and started to assemble it in the box. We then printed the acrylic shield that will go on top of the box. Tommorow we will start the final product. 

Todat we learned all about LED lights and how they work. We learbned about the different light bulbs inside each light and that different colors are just different numbers. We learned the code needed for LED lights and we practiced writing the code. We also came up with a plan of what the light display board would look like and how many lights would be on the board. 

What is the problem we are solving?

We are creating a way in which people without fine motor skills can be creative using their arms. We are allowing people who have disabilities use color to express themselves. 

We are still struggling to come up with an idea for using the myo. Some of our previous ideas were to make a raft, a puppet or a dance tempo detecor. We ended up settling with the LED light displayer where you can move your hand around to control the lighting. We are not sure what our project is yet but this is our idea for today. The other ideas were too complicated so we scratched them.  

Today we added the switch to the arduino pretty quickly, finishing up that part of the project. What tripped us up was the construction of the actual desk toy using rhino and laser cutting. We had used box maker and put our box onto rhino and put in our own holes and such in where they were necessary. In doing this, we decided instead of adding the same hole to two of the sides we should just copy that side and use it on the other side. Also in some point we changed the units and our box had not translated and scaled as we thought it would. So, after laser printing the box we found not only was it bigger than we had planned, but we also found that the sides were not exactly the same as we had thought and so the side we copied didn't have the right notches for the side we needed it on. Here we had a choice to just remake that one side and work with what we had already made, or make a completely new box not on box maker. We decided to make a new, simpler box because we had deleted the side that we needed for the old box and it would be easier than trying to attain it. We made sure our new box was much smaller and gave the panels of it only one notch on each side. We did this because our old box had a ton of notches and that ended up messing us up and one per side was easy to recreate on every panel. Once we thought we were finished we made the box 3D and put it together in rhino. This is when we found that we had made the sides too long, but luckily we caught it before cutting. Then, we cut our box and assembled it as much as we could before we ran out of time. We didn't end up getting the arms on but the servo worked we got the LEDs in the light holes and the sensor in the nose hole, so we got pretty close to completing it! For the over all studio maybe we could make a more useful robot that uses a sensor to help with a daily task. 

Today we finished up our butterfly servo project. We laser cut our butterfly body and wings and our platform and brackets that we screwed our two servos into. On our platform we created two slits so that the string attached to the servo and butterfly could hang down through the board. Then we attached our servos, which were in their brackets that attached to the board, to the strings that were also attached to the wings. We decided to include four LED lights alongs the surface of the platform, which screwed into the holes. we then had several wires attached to the bread board and aurduino which we had to hold up. 

Today we practiced programing on Aurduino and the Servo. We then were put into groups of two and had to come up with a project. My partner is India and we are creating a butterfly thats wings flap using the Servo. Today we created the wings, circles and wood rectangle on Rhino and laser cut them out of cardboard. Tomarow we will cut them out of wood  India worked on the code for the Servo while i focused on the laser cutting. Some decisions we made today was the size of the wood board which we decided would be 26 inches by 13 inches. We also decided on the size of the circles and the wings. Another decsion we made was to put LED lights on top of the wood along the rim. 

We decided to make a small desk toy robot that waves when you set off a sensor. At first we had an idea to make a desk toy that had tubes in a display case that would fill and empty using a syringe type of thing but then changed our idea once we were told that making our own syringe would be very difficult and probably wouldn't be able to be done in the time frame that we have. The hardest part of this was probably coming up with the initial idea. We decided on a robot lifting its arms and having its eyes light up with LEDs because it seemed like a project that wasn't too challenging. We then tried to figure out how the non-arduino parts would be assembled by designing them on rhino. We decided to make the robot a single box instead of having it have legs or something because it would be simpiler and easier to complete in the time given that way. We also decided that the arms would be attached to a small wood plank that ran through the width of the robot to the other arm. We thought this made the most sense instead of having 2 wooden planks. the string that would be attached to the servo would run allong this plank and onto the end of the arm, that way when the servo inside the robot spun both arms would go up at the same time. After we made some designs on rhino we started working on the coding and setup of the arduino. The assembly of the arduino code and circuit board required few big decisions because the setup had to be a certain way in order for it to work. By the end of the day we were able to set up the sensor so that when you waved your hand infront of it it set off two LEDs that will be the eyes and the servo that will moved the arms. Tomorrow we will try to assemble everything in the box that is the robot and an on off button.