DG220: Pressure rising

It was DG220 again, up until now it was not that much work, but I knew this could not go on forever. Today’s lecture was about capacitors, capacitance, inductors and inductance. These two are both used as filters and are pretty similar in calculations as resistance and resistors. After the lecture Thomas and I made the exercises again and received feedback on last the exercises of last week and the week before last week.  We had done a pretty good job, we had the answers right, but we could explain some assignments a bit better than we had done. In the morning we made the first chapter of this week. It was pretty hard sometimes, especially the filter part.

In the afternoon I continued with my design document and showcase. The design document requires a lot of thinking; what is necessary to be said and what is not. This is why the document itself is not going very fast, it takes longer than I had expected.

Designing a design document

21-11

It was Jelmer’s birthday. I also picked up the design document, which is basically also a good start of the report, so I took the time to create some nice visuals for this as well. It became clear that I have still got some work to do about the theory of my concept. I made my own theory about the activation of the conscious mind. It is an easy theory, but nonetheless important. It says that when one performs an subconscious action consciously (turning on the light in this case) , this person will also think more about other unconscious actions (i.e. opening the door, taking a chair to sit on). There will probably be research about this subject, but I want to investigate this myself. Later on in the week I will develop a user test for this purpose.

The visual:

I’ve also been to my second academic development class, which still is interesting. As a preparation, we needed do read two articles. It kind of surprised me that the exact same things were being said in the lecture, it kind of felt as if I had read it for nothing. Of course, one remembers it better when he or she sees it two times. At this point, I have the feeling that it will be too hard to make the essay. It is about showing that a subject is or is not a pseudo-science. It is ‘merely’ looking at criteria and explaining why this science fits this criteria of science of why it does not.

Making continued

18-11

Further with making the handles, result below. More drawings were made to think of other handles. Of this I made a some decisions based on criteria. I wanted to keep the mystery of the object, as this creates a more magical and unique experience.

Weekend 19-11 and 20-11

Trial and error with the looks of my new showcase. Eventually I came up with a style, made as a home page. The other menu is something I need to think about more. Results:

Project: Details and making!

17-11



This Thursday there was a project meeting again in which we got the advice to make a design document before next Thursday. This includes the 'final concept', with details about the technology, aesthetics and functionality of the design. Actually, this is a pretty good idea of Sam, it puts a bit of pressure on me to get everything on paper.
The group theme was also something we had not yet decided upon, so this is something we also needed to think about asap.


After the meeting, I had planned to begin creating. I started with making a handle for the inside of the plastic bowl I had bought for the midterm exhibition.

I started out with looking at things people hold; bottles, doorhandles and stuff like this. After this, I made some small sketches of how the handles could look. When I was actually making it, I realizes that David Verweij participated in a project about aesthetic deign as a main process, previous semester. So I visited him and talk about the approach he had experienced. This existed of a lot of drawing, sketching and choosing a couple of them to actually make from those sketches and drawings. The planning for the upcoming days was now to sketch, make the design document and finish the handles I already started with.

Here some pictures of the start of the creation.

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!

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.

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!