28-11
Mondays are not nice, because they are always really busy!
Today started of with a coach meeting with Sam, with the first part being a project meeting in which everybody presented their design documents. Mine, luckily was good enough for the time being, but Bruno had a hard time. It is hard to see this happening to a project mate and I was really doubting if there is something which I needed to say or that I should just let things be.. This does remind me of how important communication is. Being able to tell what you want to tell in a clear overview is a skill which will become of a great importance during a designer's career.
It also reminded me of the unique position of the ID student at the TU/e. The process approach, learning from other students and learning by doing are different from other ID educations, but make this one so strong. One can learn so much from others. I have learned as much from other students and their work as I have learned from assignments and other activities.
The second part of the meeting, was individual. I send an e-mail to Sam on Thursday or Friday last week that I was struggling with what he mentioned as an interaction which was too easy. I did not quite understand what he meant en though that the power of this concept is in the 'simpleness'; if something would be added/changed the focus of the design would be on another interaction in stead of the pouring-interaction. When I talked to him, he luckily said that he did not think my concept was bad, but the story did not add up entirely yet. I need to mention that the product is meant as some sort of ritual, something which needs to be done to respect the action of creating light. He also taught my showcase has a good base now of which I am really glad!
At 12:15 I joined the Educie meeting again, in which we decided to have a brainstorm and settled some unsolved mysteries of the upcoming photoshop workshop.
In the afternoon, I helped Mariette with programming the Arduino. She had not yet seen the Arduino being hooked up to a sensor, so it was the easiest if somebody could help her for a minute. It was not to hard to write the program, but it needed some smoothing. Unfortunately, another meeting was waiting before I could finish this properly, so I left Mariette on her own with the coding.
The third meeting of the day was with Rik about the SDL report. It needs to be finished! So we looked at the last things which need to happen before it is done. Thankfully, it is not that much. It is mainly the final chapter and pasting the appendices from the right documents.
And in the end of the afternoon there was the academic development again. This time it took the lecturer sooo long to make his point that it was really really boring. I have not learned anything at all this time..
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Monday, 21 November 2011
Wednesday, PCB factory; report
16-11
Today on the program, continuing the report of the clock project and visiting a PCB factory, to see how they are made in the industry.
In the morning Rik and I made new text and images for the report. We really need to finish this, because other deadlines are coming up and it will be withholding us from those activities.
In the afternoon we travelled to a printing company near Helmond called V-PS. There we talked to a technician, who was kind enough to give us a tour in the factory and tell us something about the manufacturing process. This nice to see once, it made me realize that we are busy creating products which are produced in bulk, for the industry. It reminded me of the documentary 'The genius of design' which I saw during the SDL-weeks. The episode I had in mind was about the history of mass production. Really inspiring series!
Unfortunately this tour lasted for the entire afternoon, which was pretty long. Upside, Rik will get a discount on the ordering of the PCB.
In the afternoon I helped Wendy making a program in Processing. She wanted a little program that would let the mouse scare of little balls (like herding a pack of sheep). It was a nice way to see if I still understood the program and its Syntax and a way to explain the basics to Wendy. Here is the result, the problem is that it works on the x and y coordinates, which creates a rectangular hit-plane. For a natural result it should be an circular hit-plane. Since I made this in about two hours, I was pretty happy with the result!
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Tuesday, DG220
Today started with Introducing electronics. A rather short meeting, as we were done in less than one hour. The subject of this lecture was about resistance and resistors. The voltage divider which Jelmer explained me the day before was also addressed. This was really convenient as I had just started working with it.
After this, I made the questions with Thomas again, most of them proved not to be that hard. As a preparation, we put the questions into Word when we were done to save time when we are going to make the report. We also sent the answers of last week to Geert for feedback.
In the afternoon I was talking to Edwin, one of the students with the same project (different client). When he asked what I was doing I told him that I wanted to work with4 pressure sensors. He immediately thought of the Wii Balance Board (which I have at home). Of course it is possible to hack this controller. I started doing research how to do this. In the evening I did have a set-up so that I could see the values of the sensor, but I have absolutely no idea on how to convert this into an output as it is just an interface. Also, everything was programmed in C#. I do not have the knowledge in programming at this time to be able to fiddle around with this, so I will not try to do this for this project. I still think programming is a lot of fun though, because it eases my mind. Below a video of the outcome of the research.
I also started to fiddle around with the looks of my upcoming showcase. After last coach meeting, I agreed on making a draft version of my showcase. I do not really have an idea what I am going to do, but I know I will find out when messing around with lines, fonts, etc... I will post some of the results soon.
After this, I made the questions with Thomas again, most of them proved not to be that hard. As a preparation, we put the questions into Word when we were done to save time when we are going to make the report. We also sent the answers of last week to Geert for feedback.
In the afternoon I was talking to Edwin, one of the students with the same project (different client). When he asked what I was doing I told him that I wanted to work with4 pressure sensors. He immediately thought of the Wii Balance Board (which I have at home). Of course it is possible to hack this controller. I started doing research how to do this. In the evening I did have a set-up so that I could see the values of the sensor, but I have absolutely no idea on how to convert this into an output as it is just an interface. Also, everything was programmed in C#. I do not have the knowledge in programming at this time to be able to fiddle around with this, so I will not try to do this for this project. I still think programming is a lot of fun though, because it eases my mind. Below a video of the outcome of the research.
I also started to fiddle around with the looks of my upcoming showcase. After last coach meeting, I agreed on making a draft version of my showcase. I do not really have an idea what I am going to do, but I know I will find out when messing around with lines, fonts, etc... I will post some of the results soon.
Monday, technoday!?
14-11
Projectmonday. Its hard to chose between aesthetics and the technology. One moment I want to work on the aesthetics and the other on the technology. I decided to work on the technology part of the project and get myself a pressure sensor at the e-lab. They gave me a piezoelectric film; made from a material which resistance changes when pressure is increased on the object.
After researching on the internet for circuits and not finding them, I asked Jelmer if he knew how to connect this, as I knew he has a better understanding of electronics then I have got at the moment. He told me to make use of a voltage divider; I used the set-up below. The 1M ohm resistor was chosen as every forum talking about the piezo used this.
Unfortunately it did not work. In hindsight it was a loose contact on the piezo. If only I had thought of using a multimeter first to read the resistance. This would have saved me a lot of time.
I also participated in another EduCie meeting, in which we kind of found out how we are going to plan the workshops and other activities we want to execute during this semester.
In the afternoon I got to experience how it feels like when having colleges; the first academic development session started. Other people (who have already experienced session of the academic development) that it would be really boring. Actually, it was kind of interesting! The goal of the academic development is to understand when something is science and when it is psuedo-science (or in between). It has this philosophic way of approaching the subject which I really like.
It was also time to finish my Dutch Design Week video. I made this as an inspirational video, without using the kind of interactive and intelligent systems created at Industrial Design. So here it is!
Projectmonday. Its hard to chose between aesthetics and the technology. One moment I want to work on the aesthetics and the other on the technology. I decided to work on the technology part of the project and get myself a pressure sensor at the e-lab. They gave me a piezoelectric film; made from a material which resistance changes when pressure is increased on the object.
After researching on the internet for circuits and not finding them, I asked Jelmer if he knew how to connect this, as I knew he has a better understanding of electronics then I have got at the moment. He told me to make use of a voltage divider; I used the set-up below. The 1M ohm resistor was chosen as every forum talking about the piezo used this.
Unfortunately it did not work. In hindsight it was a loose contact on the piezo. If only I had thought of using a multimeter first to read the resistance. This would have saved me a lot of time.
I also participated in another EduCie meeting, in which we kind of found out how we are going to plan the workshops and other activities we want to execute during this semester.
In the afternoon I got to experience how it feels like when having colleges; the first academic development session started. Other people (who have already experienced session of the academic development) that it would be really boring. Actually, it was kind of interesting! The goal of the academic development is to understand when something is science and when it is psuedo-science (or in between). It has this philosophic way of approaching the subject which I really like.
It was also time to finish my Dutch Design Week video. I made this as an inspirational video, without using the kind of interactive and intelligent systems created at Industrial Design. So here it is!
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Last part SDL weeks
03-11
Let's start with the remainder of the SDL weeks. On Thursday we tried to find out how big the damage actually was. Rik did this by measuring the resistance of the tracks with a multi-meter. There were quite a few tracks which were not destroyed, which gave us hope. Considering the time we had left (this day and the Friday) we decided that we would only create the inner circle (which contained of 20 LED's) to give a proof of concept. Of course, this also did not go as fast as we had hoped. We got all the different components in and connections were made between the resistors and the LED's.
04-11
On Friday, Rik continued to work on connecting the components, as I started making the report. Rik's got more and more frustrated, as the soldering was nearly impossible (it did not attach properly and it is extremely small). At a given moments, it was obvious that the PCB was just not made properly enough to make it work.
That is when we decide to work on the report for the rest of the day. The option of ordering the PCB were still open and will probably happen as well. The report will be as short as possible, with visuals supporting the different phases of the process. There will be little text in there, which will be quite a challenge for me. A small preview:
Pictures of the bare PCB:
Let's start with the remainder of the SDL weeks. On Thursday we tried to find out how big the damage actually was. Rik did this by measuring the resistance of the tracks with a multi-meter. There were quite a few tracks which were not destroyed, which gave us hope. Considering the time we had left (this day and the Friday) we decided that we would only create the inner circle (which contained of 20 LED's) to give a proof of concept. Of course, this also did not go as fast as we had hoped. We got all the different components in and connections were made between the resistors and the LED's.
04-11
On Friday, Rik continued to work on connecting the components, as I started making the report. Rik's got more and more frustrated, as the soldering was nearly impossible (it did not attach properly and it is extremely small). At a given moments, it was obvious that the PCB was just not made properly enough to make it work.
That is when we decide to work on the report for the rest of the day. The option of ordering the PCB were still open and will probably happen as well. The report will be as short as possible, with visuals supporting the different phases of the process. There will be little text in there, which will be quite a challenge for me. A small preview:
Pictures of the bare PCB:
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