Category: BSc2b

“This is the beginning of the end, the end of the end is still coming!” – The Croods

We are onto testing and at first I was not excited. I know things need to be tested, but for this I just wasn’t bothered. With only 2 weeks left the stress started getting to me, and all I wanted to do was submit and be done with it.

But once I started testing my mind changed very quickly. The amount of issues that revealed themselves when my sisters started using the app and toy, it was awesome. There were SO MANY things I hadn’t considered, and both siblings had such different ways of trying to figure out the app it was extremely insightful. We’ve changed a lot and the app feels much more thorough now!

The last thing I had to do was edit the video. It was a bit frustrating because we planned that everyone would film their own part and then I would edit them together, but last second everyone was busy and I had to record most of it as well. I found that I wasn’t mad at my team though, just the circumstances. They let me know in advance, it’s just frustrating to be in that situation in general. I’m glad to have had a positive group project for once, it had ups and downs but I am proud of what we’ve accomplished!

It’s so nice seeing everything put together, I am very excited to submit and even more excited to enter the Creative Conscience Awards!

Figure 1: Render I made of the 3d Model for the video

“We fixed our mistakes and the day turned out great!” – Shimmer and Shine

I accidentally burned off the solder points surrounding the pins that connect to our battery management board. with the way things need to connect there was no way to move the pins or bridge anything. My solution was to solder wire from the diode directly to the pins, it doesn’t touch the protoboard at all.

I also made a mistake at handling a different situation, my teammate Ro seemingly broke the motor while assembling the shell she printed for our project. It turns out it wasn’t broken, I managed to fix it after looking at it for under a minute, but I was refusing to look at it for half the morning, I just kept telling her to take it to Bevis because it belongs to him.

I have done a lot of reflecting on this, Diana mentioned I should write about it yet I couldn’t see why. In my head Ro was the one who broke it and if I had even acknowledged it then it would be my fault the piece was broken. I did the 5 Whys again, and I think my response to both situations stem from past experiences. If I had broken something like that when I was younger, I would’ve surely been yelled at. I forget how easily replaceable electronic parts are, and how it’s ok to make mistakes because I’m not used to that mentality.

That seems really sad but I swear these weeks went great, I just feel like this was the most important thing to write about haha.

Figure 1: My finished proto board. The leftmost red wire is bridging over the ruined solder points.

Figure 2: The ruined solder points on the back of the board

“When thе stars all fall we’ll all become
anothеr stain on the universe!” – PAiDA, PLANET KiLLER

I was sick for the weekend of week 22 up until Tuesday week 23, which I found very stressful. Because we only work 2 days a week I always feel like I’m extremely behind if I miss just 1 day, and I was planning to push myself and attend class anyway but then I remembered I could get my classmates sick and decided to stay home. I made sure to keep my team updated and check that they all has things to work on which helped me feel a lot calmer.

Besides that slight setback I think we’ve made great progress! Grace and I have gotten solar panels, a hand crank made from a motor, and a buzzer turned button all generating energy, and Katie has done an awesome job planning out the app. I am slightly worried about the other two team members as they’ve not done much yet, but I am now a lot more confident that our project will turn out great.

I have been asking Bevis about our project. He has helped a lot by explaining what is and isn’t feasible in 8 weeks time, and explaining different ways we can generate energy. Our current plan is to use the solar panels, crank, and buzzer to power an Arduino that bluetooths to the app which will show how much energy is being generated. We are on track to get everything done, and if we finish early we have plans to add more components and add educational facts to the app.

Figure 1: Whatsapp Message I sent to my team, I stayED home the next day and of coure let them know that

Figure 2: Testing Grace’s Battery Management Board

“Mamma Mia, here we go again!” – ABBA

We are now onto the collaborative project, and I am very nervous. The worst part of games was the group projects, nothing was organised and I didn’t know anyone in my groups. I am very glad to be paired with Grace at least, she has the same worries as I do so we can have each other’s backs.

I tried to take charge during my group’s first meeting. Usually I would get talked over in games with everyone fighting to take control, but I found the opposite with this group. I had to push people a bit to speak their mind, but it was a very nice conversation and I am a lot more confident in our project.

Following the brief, I setup a miro board and let each group member vote on what discipline they’d like to go for. One of my main issues with group projects was that I never enjoyed them due to not getting a say in what we were making, so I am doing my best to make sure everyone in this group is working on something they enjoy. We ended up picking education as our focus, and proceeded onto coming up with our project.

We made a list of everyone’s strengths, and came up with making something that teaches children about energy conservation through energy generation and a phone app. Our original idea was to make a dance mat that charges a phone through kinetic energy, but Bevis mentioned that may be difficult with the 8 week timeframe. So after doing more research we decided to make a toy that can generate energy to charge AA batteries!

Figure 1: Miro Research Conducted by Team