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.

 

 

Submitted Part Files



 

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.