Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Final Post

Tears were shed, blood was lost, sleep was deprived. The design project for 22.201 is now finished.
Description of Final Assembly
The completed project is just as described before. We have a 3X3X3 LED cube wired into a PCB with an acrylic casing covering the whole assembly. This cube then sits on top of a motion mechanism. This mechanism consists of one small servo motor mounted on top of a bigger servo. Using the 3D printer parts were fabricated for this mechanism. Manufactured parts included two servo casings, a bracket, and a platform. In addition to these printed part there were five sides to the LED cube that were laser cut out of acrylic. As for inputs into the whole system there were two potentiometers and one microphone. Each of the potentiometers controlled on of the servo motors. The microphone was used to control the LED cube. Sounds that the microphone picked up triggered a certain pattern based on the volume.
Overall the project did what we set out to do. LED lights were controlled by a microphone, with motion provided by the servos.During transportation to the showcase the 'platform' part broke and was unable to be fitted back to the small servo. Because of this we couldn't fully test the motion of the cube. The following is a picture of the completed assembly:






   

Below are the final versions of the code used. One for LED control the other for servo control




Improvements
With this being the first design iteration there are many improvements that could be made. The following is a list of things that could be better developed.
  • Write in a break statement into the LED pattern code so every time the value of the microphone changes the code breaks out of its current pattern and starts a new one. This will give a more responsive LED cube. 
  • Code the microphone to read the music being played not only the volume. The microphone would read the music frequency band spectrum. This way the LED cube could react to the type of music being played. Things like tempo and pitch would be a factor in LED display.
  • Upgrade the second level small servo to a bigger one to provide more motion.
  •  Refine the whole motion mechanism. Currently it is very primitive with just the servos stacked on top of one another. Create better solid models that fit together. The thickness of the extrude needs to be increased to be stronger on the 'platform' 3D printed part. 
  • Write code for the microphone so it calibrates itself upon start up. This would calibrate it with the surrounding environment. Within the first 5 seconds the microphone would take the lowest and highest values and used those as threshold values to run the LED patterns.
  •  Better assembly of the LED cube. Use longer more flexible wires; use a coupling to organize all the wires underneath the cube. Have holes in the acrylic cube for the wires.
  • Replace all the red and yellow LEDs with RGB LEDs for a more colorful performance.
  • Map microphone data to control both servos. This would give a completely self-sufficient system, instead of having user input control.  

Team Member Contributions:

Jennifer Droke:

  • Design of acrylic cube casing. Created SolidWorks models for a visual of the final assembly, as well as for having the part made.
  • Designed wiring layout for LED cube based on tutorial http://randomnerdtutorials.com/arduino-led-cube-3x3x3/
  • Assembled, soldered, and tested LED Cube 
  • Assembled acrylic casing from cut parts
  • Soldered wiring on PCB
  • Purchased the proper transistors, resistors, jumper wires, PCB, and microphone for the cube, as well as materials for the project board and the potentiometers for the  servo motors
  • Assembled final prototype for presentation
  • Created tri-fold project board and researched/typed information for presentation
  • Wrote about four blog posts, contributed to one other. Made multiple pictures and videos for blog.
  • Estimation of total hours worked: 35 hours
My thoughts: Our group worked together very well, and we all contributed equally.  Every meeting, we were all deep in work and maintained open communication.  If anyone missed a meeting, the work was quickly and easily made up with all the hours put in at home.  It was great working with two exceptional team members who worked to make our final prototype work just as we wanted it to in our original idea.


Matthew Popelka:

  • Design of the motion mechanism using the servos. Created all necessary solid models on SolidWorks.Converted to STL file type and checked part material. Then redesigned accordingly to reduce material cost and manufacturing time.
  • Purchased bigger servo to ensure smooth motion of LED cube.
  • Modified/integrated the microphone code with the LED control code. Debugged code so patterns would display with correct threshold levels.
  • Wrote about 6 blog spots
  • Edited/finished final report
  • Estimation of total hours worked: 35 hours
My thoughts: I believe everyone contributed fairly and pulled their own weight, we worked well as team. During the team meetings we were all researching, wiring circuits, and discussing. I will say that Jen had the harder task of soldering, wiring, and assembling the LED cube and should be credited accordingly. 

Samir Meskinaoui:

  • Wrote and modified code for the two servo. Harness Arduino component like the potentiometer to control the motion of two servos.
  •   Estimation of total hours worked: 35 hours
  • Edited/started final report.
  • Wrote about 3 blog spots.
  • Search for Arduino codes for the both the servos and microphone and checking all circuits. 
My thoughts: I have worked in many groups in my college career. For the first time, I felt like the group was fair and everyone pulled their weight equally. We all enjoyed creating and learning the new material. Jenn did an excellent job of assembling the LEDs. 

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Wiring and Fun Stuff

Our wiring before we put everything in the final setup. We have two arduinos in series, the one on the right running two servos and the one on the left running the led cube and its microphone.



Wednesday, December 11, 2013

New Power Source!!

Our power source for both boards, the servos, and the cube has arrived. We are now running a 12 volt battery pack of 8 AA alkaline batteries, attached to the master board via the ground and vin pins. Based on our research, vin is the pin used for power input of 7-12 volts and should sustain all of the components of our project.

Battery pack with wires soldered in place.

Led cube and microphone being powered by battery pack.



Video of the Working Cube with Microphone

The video of the cube lighting up to the sound heard by the microphone (finally)! In the final layout, we will use a 12 volt battery pack rather than the power supplied by the computer via usb cable. As seen in the video, our lack of higher voltage from the usb causes some leds to be dim, if they light up at all.







The Final Stretch

This week is probably the busiest for the whole project due to everything finally coming together.

There were setbacks with the assembly of the 3X3X3 LED cube. Initial tests failed to achieve desired results. We couldn't even get a single LED to light up. After many many hours of struggle, checking the wiring, soldering, and assembly, finally today the LED cube lit up and displayed a pattern.

The parts requested for manufacturing have been picked up. The following are the 3D printed parts. There were some problems with two of the parts fitting together. Using a Swiss Army knife excess material was removed sufficiently so that the parts could slide together without interference. This error was caused by a misunderstanding of printer resolution and not having a large enough clearance gap between the parts.

Big Servo Casing
Bracket

Small Servo Casing

Platform


Modular Parts that Fit Together


As far as connections go between all the parts in the assembly. An adhesive will be used such as acrylic glue or epoxy. 
The final steps include integrating the microphone code with the LED cube visual display code and assembling all the pieces together.


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Project Update

Summary of Progress

Team Meeting
Tuesday 12/3/2013
2pm Perry 321
All team members present

As the Fall 2013 semester draws to a close the project is slowly coming to completion.

Two new pieces of hardware have been acquired for the project: a microphone and a standard servo. The standard servo was purchased with the concern that the micro servo could not handle the weight load of the mechanism. So too ensure some movement a bigger servo was purchased. Specification differences: 1.5 kg/cm@4.8 volts compared to 3.5 kg/cm@4.8 volts. Links to products below:

http://www.adafruit.com/products/1063?gclid=CKXlq8GzlbsCFcY7Mgod1iYABw

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=22472146

Status

Part 1:
This week part files for manufacturing were submitted. One set for the acrylic laser cutter and the other for 3D printer. A total of 10 individual parts will be manufactured. The following are some images of the parts, with links to the part files on the drive below.

 
 

 
In one of the previous posts there was the first design iteration of the mechanism, which is used to move the LED cube. The completed assembly could not fully go through the motions necessary, that issue has been resolved. The video below shows a preview of the motion the completed project should go through. Note that servo motors only have a range of 160 degrees, the final project will not have the full range of motion as in the video.
 
 
 
Part 2:
With the microphone finally in hand, the task now turned to controlling the LED with the microphone. Initially there was trouble getting the microphone the produce proper variable outputs. But by using the serial monitor window from the Arduino software we were able to see to exact input data the microphone was gathering from the environment. In the end we learned the microphone was not as sensitive as we thought. In the long run this is better because it gives us a bigger noise level to program for LED output. After many trials the following is the code:



 Final Steps:
 
 For next meeting the following are some items that need to get done:

- Write code for mapping the microphone input to the 3X3X3 LED cube. This is significantly harder than just lighting up one LED. Initial consensus is that we will treat each level separately, like three separate LEDs, instead of trying to light up each of the 27 LEDs individually.

- Buy the right glue for assembly of the final project. The acrylic cube, and some of thee plastic parts will be glued together.

- With the acquisition of the bigger servo a second Arduino board will need to be used. The bigger servo draws 4.8 volts out of 5 total. This will be accomplished by either having a stand alone board or having one be the master controller.

- Monday December 9th is presentation day for the project. The final report needs to be written along with some type of presentation material.