Category: Projects

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Project Post #7

PROJECT POST #7

Project Title: Vis Hat  

Project Team: Lydia, Fu, Jay

 

Weekly Accomplishments:

Lydia:

  • Found example/reference code for data visualization
  • Researched and learned more programming language syntax for d3.js visualization software (Javascript, HTML, CSS)
  • Researched setting up live data visualization
  • Planned and designed wiring setup for final prototype
  • 3d modeled final prototype for headset with integrated wiring setup
  • Attempted 3d printed final prototype in elastic material (design construction not compatible with elastic or flexible material)
  • 3d printed backup model in PLA hard plastic (will still work better than first prototype because of more specific measurements and wire structuring)

Fu:

  • Design and finalize circuit setup.
  • Soldering circuit on proto board and check its functionality.
  • Setting prototype and test it.

Jay:

  • Wrote code for emitter cycles
  • Looking into D3 data visualization
  • Poster design and some of the text

Images:

  • (Image 1) The following image shows the design and position on how emitters, resistors, transistors, and photodiodes are positioned.
  • (Image 2) The image below shows the actual circuit built on proto board, which looks less bulky than using breadboard. Also, we reduced some redundant pins and integrated them together. This circuit is our final version.  
  • (Image 3 & 4) These images are of the updated prototype model with added specified dimensions, wire structuring, and cover.

 

Material List:

title/link # needed price/unit notes shipping and tax TOTAL PRICE:
arduino due 1 34.43 34.43
NPN transistor 1 5.99 this one unit contains ~200 resistors 5.99
730nm emitter 2 8.61 9.54 26.76
850nm emitter 2 1.46 2.92
850 max nir detector/sensor 2 5.37 9.02 19.76
bluetooth 1 28.95 RN41XVC (with chip antenna) 8.81 37.76
850nm emitter 2 1.46 To account for trial and error hardware testing 7.99 9.45
9 volt battery power supply adapter 1 5.99 5.99
3d print in elastic material 1 0 0

Project Concerns:

This week with the new prototype printed and all the hardware reconfigured in smaller more condensed setup, we are ready to construct the final complete Viz Hat. Here are some concerns for the week:

  • Obtaining data that’ll work. We need to do several tests this week to make sure the data we’re gathering can be used consistently for the visualization.
  • Getting the visualization ready. We’ve found some already existing code we’d like to implement with the parameters of our data, but we need to work on initializing it in live time and getting the data to transfer from the Arduino serial port to D3.js’s software.

Other than these two concerns, the remaining steps we need to take should be pretty straightforward. These include finishing the headset assembly, which is all planned out and configuring the demo. Our plan for the demo is to (1) have the Viz Hat set up on the head manakin, (2) display and explain the concept and process with our poster, (3) have a laptop/screen with a looping video of the Viz Hat working (gathering data and producing a visualization in the background). This 3rd component alleviates the potential for any technological difficulties that could arise with a live demo.

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Project Post 6: Lit Lehenga

Individual: Jessica Fernandes

Weekly accomplishments:

  • I acquired all my materials and continued to test the functionality of my code
  • Materials I have: Circuit Playground Express, light sensors,LEDs, Enclosure, power source

One Sentence:

  • Lit Lehenga is a traditional Indian garment that illuminates in darkness to mimic the magic of Diwali and celebrate Indian culture.
I purchased 40 white leds
I also got an enclosure for the circuit in case I want to incorporate it into the design, but it might be too bulky to be worn

Linked below are my pictures of:

Materials

Areas of concern

  • Ensure that the additional LED sequins are triggered by the light sensor; it doesn’t function as planned currently. Connect the hardware in a wearable configuration to plan where they’ll ultimately be sewn.
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Project Post #6: Wearable Circuits

Wearable Circuits

John Compas

One – Line Description

Exploring the possibilities of wearable circuitry with and without power sources

Accomplishments

I’ve got NFC power to work with a couple of NFC tags I bought.

They’re easy to integrate into the circuits I’ve built already. I just remove the IC at the feed point of the antenna and attach 30 gauge wires to the feed points. Above, I’ve got a simple full bridge rectifier working although the LEDs light up just as well without one. The rectifier can output about 3 volts DC at 10mA, which isn’t a lot of power, but enough to work with. I’m also going to try to put two of them in parallel to see if I can increase the power output.

The nice thing about the NFC tags is that they are readable from my phone, and many other android phones, so I won’t need a dedicated reader or writer. However, my phone isn’t very powerful and the distance the LED or other circuitry remains power is only a centimeter or two.

I’m going to try to utilize my own NFC antennas, as these frequencies are so low this system is more working like a transformer. Thus, as long as I reasonably match the number of loops of the commercial antennas, this should work decently well. The above design is for 5 leds powered by one tag.

Coming Week

I’ve got a lot to do. I’m going to focus first on getting simple LED circuits to work with these NFC tags and maybe with batteries. I’m mostly thinking of aesthetic wristbands or armbands that have an array of LEDs that wrap around your arm.

I’ve also found that the MOSFETs I bought can seemingly be operated like little “capacitive touch” buttons, although I think they’re actually functioning differently. If I connect the ground of the circuit to the wearer, they can actually turn off the MOFSETs by touching their gates. I’m going to explore using this to turn on and off the LEDs on the wearer and try to get the MOSFETs to hold this state somehow. Ideally, I’d like a pattern to show up on a wearer when they approach an NFC reader.

Materials List:

  1. Clear Covering Self-Adhesive 
    1. https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Cover-Adhesive-Contact-Projects/dp/B000BPF9QY/ref=sr_1_26?crid=QOW16D2H82TC&keywords=vinyl+adhesive+paper&qid=1551742619&s=gateway&sprefix=vinyl+ad%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-26
    2. Count: 1
    3. Cost: $5.50
  2. Silhouette Temporary Tattoo Paper
    1. https://www.amazon.com/Silhouette-MEDIA-TATTOO-Temporary-Tattoo-Paper/dp/B0043WJ3OA
    2. Count: 1
    3. Cost:  $8.99
  3. Spray Adhesive
    1. https://www.amazon.com/3M-General-Purpose-45-Adhesive/dp/B000PCWRMC
    2. Count: 1
    3. Cost: $5.77
  4. Speedball Gold Leaf
    1. https://www.amazon.com/Bememo-Imitation-Gilding-Crafting-Decoration/dp/B0722X91YR
    2. Count: 1
    3. Cost: $6.99
  5. SPMWH22286D5WAP0S2 (Samsung LEDs)
    1. Count: 100
  6. RC1210JR-07100RL (100 Ohm Resistor)
    1. Count: 100
  7. SL3S1203FTB0,115 (UHF RFID)
    1. Count: 10
  8. C1812C102KGRACAUTO (Capacitor)
    1. Count: 10
  9. NTR5105PT1G (Diode)
    1. Count: 10
  10.  Conductive Guitar Tape
  11.  NSR201MXT5G (RF Schottky Diode)
  12.  ST25DV16K-IER6T3 (NFC IC)
  13. RF700072 (NFC Antenna)
  14. RF700070 (NFC Antenna)

 

 

 

 

 

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Project Post #6: Scavenger Stuffs

Weekly Accomplishments:

This week was tackling the major issue of communicating between the RFID scanner and the Unity game. Thankfully, a solution has finally been found. It feels a bit over-complicated, but it works under manual testing and should hold up all the way:

  1. Power up Pi and RFID Read/Writer
  2. Power up computer on the same network, ssh to pi
  3. Scan pendant against RFID reader, output to file
  4. Rsync file to the computer via ssh (hopefully this will be automated in the near future)
  5. Run the dummy unity program which looks at that location and updates gamesparks accordingly
  6. Pull results from gamesparks in-game

The setup for this took a while, but it ends up being fairly simple in the pi and application. The video below shows the file transfer occurring.

Also done this week, more component acquisition. We have the paint and clay needed to finish up the goat, and two additional pis and scanners have been ordered, along with 10 extra tags. I will need 2 additional microSD cards, but they have not been ordered.

As for plush progress, I have a good idea of what the third animal will be and have some fabric set aside. The anteater plush now has eyes as well.

For the game side, login/registration was fixed, and the app was finally hooked up to read in acquired animals from the server. Users can tap to swap which anima they use in-game.

Images:

Video this week, showing off the new RSync between our pi and my laptop

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uwSZU0IbvlXcYmhjvJBxuMjCMQBm7wx7

Additional Material List:

    1. Battery/USB Charger (still torn on which I’ll be using, but right now it isn’t a priority)
    2. MicroSD Card (this might add a bit to the expense of the plush
    3. Cost of Plastic for 3D printing the pendants (depends on whether I’m crushing the old pendant ot make the new one, or working around the original key fob. Again, I’ll make this call once I have a base product working).

Areas of Concern:

Right now, biggest concern is with soldering the RFID Reader/Writer and making sure it works consistently. Right now, every component works individually, but linking them up is always cause for concern. Here’s what it looks like now:

RFID to File: Tested, but torn apart for transport. Code is good, hardware needs to be redone

File to Computer: Tested as of 4/14

Dummy Unity to Game: Tested as of 4/7

Essentially, we have 3 groupings of technologies that need to be tied together. This means we need, respectively:

  1. The RFID reader/writer to work consistently after soldering
  2. A scheduled task to run RSync
  3. The dummy file to be updated to grab the file from the new location

3 is a quick fix, but requires me to take a few notes before implementing. 2 can be skipped until everything else is done because the test can be run manually. 1 is what concerns me most, since my soldering skills are pretty stale. We’ll see how it goes.

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Project Post #6

Safe Sleeve

Jake Cordover

One sentence: Safe sleeve is a functional knee sleeve that conveys knee data that has historically been confined to either clinical settings or prohibitively expensive motion capture equipment.

Weekly accomplishments: This past week I focused on trying to smooth out the flexion and extension data. It has improved to a much more consistent level that seems to better reflect the rough angle, however I think there is still room for improvement. One area in particular that I’m interested in looking into is using Euler angles rather than the quaternion approach I’m using now. While Euler angles may have some limitations and are not as robust as quaternions, this may be ok in my use case. Nonetheless I am planning on implementing this approach so I can compare the two approaches.

Images:

Below is the brace on a knee with sensors attached.

Below is the data readout of the brace on a knee flexed around 90 degrees.

Materials:

Materials (no change):

Part/Material Price ($) Quantity Link
Potential IMU 1 117 with discount secured 1 https://yostlabs.com/product/bluetooth-mini/
Knee Sleeve 1 16.97 1 https://www.amazon.com/PowerLix-Compression-Knee-Sleeve-Basketball/dp/B01MQYADOT/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=powerlix+knee+sleeve&qid=1552264456&s=gateway&sr=8-5
Knee Sleeve 2 20 1 https://www.amazon.com/Zensah-Knee-Compression-Sleeve/dp/B00GPU7QRO/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=zensah+knee+sleeve&qid=1552264496&s=gateway&sr=8-6#customerReviews
3D printing and associated costs TBD TBD TBD

 

Areas of concern: Getting the data as accurate as possible is my main goal as well as concern right now. Hopefully using Euler angles proves provide better data. If I can achieve this, I’d like to focus on creating my custom enclosure so the sensors don’t have to be screwed down at all times.

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Project post #6

project title: Qi Jeans

project team: Greggory Van Dycke

one sentence that describes your project:  A pair of wireless charging jeans that gives you the freedom to go about your day without having to worry about your phones battery life.

weekly accomplishments: I have began researching parts for the second iteration of my project. Where I would like to only integrate the wireless charging transmitter directly into the pocket. I have bought 2 wireless charging transmitters. I have looked into flexible batteries such as Jenax’s Jflex batteries.

images:

.

headflex

material list:

areas of concern: I do not have any concerns that this time about my project.

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InGlove – Post #6

InGlove

Curt, Vedant, Shruthi

Project Sentence

Home Automation

 

SRF

Human augmentation device providing users with an extra thumb for everyday tasks.

Weekly Accomplishments

Curt –

This past week I worked primarily on constructing a stable brace for the SRF finger. The brace now has a leather support which reduces the elastic effect of the neoprene. Additionally, sewed several tucks into the brace neoprene in order to have it better conform to the hand.

I have received the glove liner from Amazon (though later than expected). This next Monday I will be focusing all of my effort on constructing / applying all of the flex sensors.

Using fake data, I created several ML python scripts in preparation for the flex sensors. Current plan is to have the ESP32 connect to laptop via Bluetooth in order to run the ML solution for the showcase. Unless the model is computationally cheap enough to run on the ESP32 (either main core or secondary).

Working with the servos currently, I have noticed the torque could be improved. This is something that I somewhat anticipated. Not going to address it in this iteration of the project, though the solution is to add a custom gearbox (perhaps worm gear?) to the output of the servo.

As for my power system, I have a USB battery pack  that I tested with the servos. It seems to handle the current draw with all three. It has two USB ports so it is possible to power both the controller and the servos using it, however I may purchase a secondary supply for the controller in order to isolate the voltage sag from servos.

For the poster I have started to lay out the information and determine which pictures I want to include. I need to find someone to assist me either as a hand model or to take the pictures.

Finally, I have found a name for my project that captures the essence of this step in embracing my transhuman philosophy. While I will still use the term SRF to describe it, the device shall be labeled: Táltos-oid. Táltos comes from Hungarian mythology and is a shaman that has innate supernatural power and can be identified by several possible abnormalities. The one I am drawing upon is that a Táltos can be identified by an extra finger.  What I like about this name is that this device, poetically, allows me to take a step toward transcending my humanity.

Vedant –

This week I worked on looking up how to implement an IR transmitter using the Patricle Photon. I was able to make the circuit for doing so, but had some trouble with the code, as there was multiple errors in the IR codes.

Additionally, we sewed on one of the DIY flex sensors onto a glove for the in-class demonstration and were able to successfully turn on a smart light with the flex of a finger (with a 20 second delay). However, we had to look into a DIY sensor that used fabric instead of electrical tape, to integrate it into the glove well, and we were able to get it to work successfully.

DIY Flex Sensor integrated into glove:

IR Circuit :

DIY Fabric Flex Sensor

Shruthi –

This week I worked mainly on the physical aspect of the glove and assembling the bits together. We initially sewed on a flex sensor we had made out of velostat and tape. However when we sewed it on, it did not integrate well with the fabric of the glove. The sensor also often dislocated reducing the consistency of our output.  After talking to the professor, we created a similar sensor using fabric as the insulator instead of tape. Although the readings were changing in much smaller granularity, it sewed on really well and a much better aesthetic choice.

I also tried making the android app, however the rest api error continued and the app did not work. We might fallback on IFTTT to the extent possible.

Material List

Home Assistant Sub-Project

  1. Particle Photon – $19.00 (1)
  2. Flex sensor – 4.5 inches – $12.95 (1)
  3. Flex sensor – 2.5 inches – $7.95 (1)

*We decided to go ahead with more of the DIY flex sensors. So we might possibly need more velostat and copper sheets and conducting thread.

SRF Sub-Project

Already purchased / owned

  1. Glove for prototype [final version subject to change based on prototype]
  2. Sparkfun IMU – $14.95 (1)
  3. Flex Sensor – 4.5 inches  – $15.95 (1)
  4. ESP32 Dev Board – $15.00 (1)
  5. High Torque Micro Servo – $9.95 (3)
  6. Resistive Force Sensor – $7.00 (1)
  7. Flex sensor – 4.5 inches – $12.95 (1)
  8. 3D printed  SRF – ~$9.00 (N/A)
  9. Glove [Final design] – $14.99 (1 ordered)
  10. PCBs – N/A (N/A ordered)

Need to Purchase / Being Shipped

  1. Resistive Force Sensor – $7.00 (5)
  2. Flex sensor – 4.5 inches – $12.95 (3) and/or Flex Sensor 2.5 inches – $7.95 (8)
  3. [Expected 4-18-19] High Torque Micro Servo – $9.95 (1)
  4. [Expected 4-18-19] 3.3V to 5.0V Level Shifter IC – ~$1.00 ( 1)
  5. [Expected 4-18-19] I2C Servo Driver Board [in case issue with microcontroller persists] – $14.95 (1)
  6. [Submitted request 4-13-19] Updated 3D printed SRF components $5.00 (N/A)

Areas of Concern

Curt –

Main concern is getting the flex sensors and algorithm done on time. I will be focusing exclusively on the flex sensors Monday and Wednesday so that I can make final adjustments the week after. Secondary concern (though very much related) is time. I have parts in shipment from Adafruit due Thursday to fix the lack of the rotational joint in the finger. Also I need to receive the 3D printed parts for this upgrade.

Vedant –

My main area of concern as of right now is to successfully get the particle to send the IR signal I want it to send. I am still trying to work on fixing the bugs in the code for the particle, but any help on that end would be great.

Shruthi –

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Project Post 6 – FLOW

Project title: Flow

Team: Julia Kosier & Yiting Liu

Accomplishments

Julia:

  • Wrote code to collect sound level from Circuit Playground microphone and map the results to the brightness level of the lights

Yiting:

  • Attached the optic fiber onto the wings
  • Redesigned the 3d printing to make the optic fiber stably attached to the microcontroller

Together

  • Reached a conclusion to attach the sleeve onto the elastic strap
  • Brainstormed the sleeve design and circuit design
  • Constructed the strap

 

images

Attached the optic fiber on the wings

  • material list copy your material list from last week. If you have added any new items, include them and highlight them in red. If you have removed items from last week, include them with an orange background.
Part/Material Price Quantity Link to a purchase location
1 Side Glow Fiber Optic Cable 1.5mm~8mm Optical Fiber For Lighting Decorations

[1.5mm for 15 meters]

 $15.99 w/o tax 1 link
2 Color sensor $7.95 1 link
3 16 gauge floral wire $11.99 1 link
4 Fabrics $3.99/yd

Including shipping total is $14.18

 2 yards link
5 Cellophane $15.99 1 link
6 Heat spray $5.77 1 link
7 Elastic $.60/foot 10 feet link
8

 

  • areas of concern now you have gotten started on your project, write a paragraph to articulate the areas in which you are most concerned about for your project.  Highlight areas where you are looking from help.

Areas of concern:

  • We need sleeve design support to make sure the movement of the right arm won’t affect the circuit attached on the back with the wings.
  • We need to ensure our strap design fully supports the wings
  • We need to also work on the functionality of optic fibers on the wings
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Project Post #6: Virtual Vermin

Virtual Vermin

Jeff Brandt

 

One Sentence: A flexible, full functioning computer mouse designed with 3D modeling in mind.

(I think this is dressed up a bit more than “a computer mouse in a glove”)

Weekly Accomplishments:

  • Reconfigured soft switch buttons to stretch the conductive fabric further down the fingers
  • Submitted 3D print to Makerspace to print circuit board cover
  • Deconstructed glove so that the soft switches can be integrated

 

Images:

Material List:

Wireless Mouse // Quantity: 1 // $9.99 // https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015X2OD52/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Conductive Fabric // Quantity: 1 sq. ft. // ? // Supplies in classroom

Conductive Thread // Quantity: 2 yds. // ? // Supplies in classroom

Negative Poisson Ratio Foam // Quantity: 1 sq. ft. // Free // Supplied by my research lab

Gloves // Quantity: 1 // $11.95 // https://www.amazon.com/Agloves-screen-gloves-texting-gloves/dp/B004A9FI2M/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=thin+glove&qid=1552266834&s=electronics&sr=1-6

3D printed cover for circuit board // Quantity: 1 // $2.14 // creating in Solidworks

 

Areas of Concern:

Right now, my biggest area of concern is trying to determine how to best insulate the conductive fabric/thread paths that extend from the finger tips to the palm. I have a vision of how to do it in my head but as I have never had to sew multiple layers of things before, I am not sure if there are any tips that could be of help. Marianne, if you are available to run through this process again with me for a short period of time on Monday that would be great.

As for the electronics component, Kevin, I think I decided against the integration of a microcontroller. My current plan may not be the ideal configuration for an actual go-to-market product however it will accomplish, if not exceed, the goals I had set at the beginning of the semester for a first iteration.

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Project Post #6 – Velcro MIDI Jacket

Project Post 6

Project Title

Velcro MIDI Jacket

Project Team

Junda Chen, Jeff Ma, Yudong Huang, William Black

Weekly Accomplishments

A MIDI(Theremin) jacket that can be worn and played as an instrument for synchronized acoustic and visual performances.

Weekly Accomplishments

  • Jacket
    • Adjust Velcro sheet to appropriate width for attachment (Yudong)
    • Velcro sewed and attached to the horizontal waist area (Yudong)
  • Leap Motion Case
    • More polished to be sewing ready (Yudong)
  • Light Strip
    • Able to light up the strip through circuit playground (Jeff)
    • Briefly decided to use 35 LED lights based on jacket implementation(Jeff)
    • Able to rotate white light by a certain range through control (Jeff)
    • We still need to test out if the circuit playground will respond correctly with Analog input data from the output of the Raspberry PI GPIO port in controlling the light strip to move synchronously through Raspberry PI. (Jeff)
  • Raspberry PI Power supply
    • Reimaging Raspberry PI with a proper system (Junda)
    • Test connectivity and data transmission through the PI (Junda)
  • Leap Motion Device
    • Modified MIDI sound and shared code for data transmission among the team (William)
  • Speaker
    • Purchasing an outside speaker for enhanced sound delivery (William)

Image/Video

Video 1 Light strip with its current functionality working

Light strip with analog inputs on A4(not connected to PI)

Light strip with white light rotations based on clicking

Image 2 Current JavaScript code(with analog input on A4) and demo from MakeCode

https://makecode.com/_iye9ed6AmHLw

Material list

  • Circuit Board: (Potentially) MIDI encode/decoder, Leap motion image processor,
    • Arduino (1):
    • Circuit Playground (1)22
    • Raspberry Pi 3B + (1, with toolkits): $30-50
  • Leap Motion (1): $96
  • LED Strip light (2, TBD)
  • Black velcro fabric (we have in the studio)
  • A Jacket (1, TBD)
  • (Safe) Infrared LED (20)
  • A long USB cable (x2) (for emergency and design)
  • Portable speaker for sound display

Areas of Concern

  • We need to speed up the process of integration with basic functionalities
  • The light strip needs to be properly covered with sewing
  • The hardware needs to be sewed on for further integrated design
  • The theremin sound for the leap motion needs fine-tuning
  • The data flow from the leap motion scripts to the circuit playground analog read through the GPIO  needs to be handled as soon as possible