Improvements Just In Time.
this is the link of the japan research trip.
To experiment with speed and delay of Lattepanda with unity to control arduino, which is not bad!
20mm*20mm aluminium profile was used to construct the internal frame because it is easy to work with, lightweight and durable.
many different screws, bolt and nuts were used to construct the frame and attach the wheel mount on the aliminium profiles.
IlSample quest screen (there will be another screen to show the map or something)
These 3 were drawn in Adobe illustrator in separate layers and imported into unity to animate it.
Lidar uses infared laser to sense the distance in a 360 degree manner, it could give thousands of readings per second and the program will calculate them and map it out through a point cloud.
I bought a Lidar from China to try it out and the 1 I bought was C0602 
when using the program that was provided, the lidar works perfectly, but since I am going to use it in Unity, there are problems as Unity runs on C#(a programming language) while the SDK(Software Development Kit) runs in C++, although it is not impossible to write a bridge between the 2 language or write another code in C# to use the Lidar directly in unity, it was out of my capabilities to do so after trying for a week, and while researching for how to do it, i came across another Lidar that provided the Unity codes, however the code does not work on the current lidar I have……
SO, simple solution to this problem, either i ditch the idea of using a lidar OR I buy the Lidar with the Unity code and I put the current Lidar I have for sale online (at higher price than I bought it of course.) And of course, I chosed the 2nd option, to sell the one I have and buy the other 1 that provide a unity code. Carousell, my best friend.
Why robot? Why Guiding robot? Why a whole system including a company, a backstory of how the Robot came to FYP exhibition?
The answer is much more than just because I like it (and of course I do!)
Culturally, there are two opposing opinion of a robot – A western one which threaten us by stealing our and eventually bring us to annihilation, A Japan one which is seemed as hero and seemed to enhance the quality of life, since 16th century after the invention of karakuri puppet, the Japanese enjoys seeing something moving automatically and it is still really fascinating to see something that moves by itself now as we anthropomorphize the object unconsciously. I personally think that robotic will be the next advancement to the world as our computation power increase exponentially, the only physical way we could bring these newer technology into a good use is through something that uses technology and have a physical/tangible characteristic, just like a robot, albeit the term robot was loosely used, the general idea is similar- Physical object that moves without human through a set of pre-determined protocol.
This is because I want to be of some use to our FYP batch, Guiding robot’s main purpose is to serve just one function- to bring the visitor to a student booth, which will increase the exposure of the student. Even if throughout the whole show duration, my robot only managed to bring one visitor to one student’s booth and the visitor enjoyed the booth, I would consider my FYP a success as I helped someone(visitor or student) to experience the FYP show in a slightly better way.
For now, I will be building a lost guiding robot which need the visitor to help to locate the student’s booth, although it seemed counter-intuitive to make a LOST Guiding robot as the worst thing that a guiding robot could do is to get lost, however when I go the opposite way(metaphorical), the end result still serve the same function, a robot which guide(narratively, it will be guided) the visitor to the booth. This way, the user experience/interaction with the robot will be different as they will feel like they will be helping the poor robot to find and complete it’s task and the visitor will feel like they have a sense of duty/accomplishment when finding the booth.
How does this work?
All of these stems from the word “Altruism“- the belief in or practice of disintegrate and selfless concern for the well-being of others. In this case, sacrificing the user’s own time to help a random robot.(which by logical thought, they do not need help and does not have feeling, however human is a complex thing and probably will not do things by logic)
As helping others will give us a sense of purpose and satisfaction, I will want to instill this idea into my project to make the user to feel like they are really helping the robot and feel the satisfaction when they complete the task(which in turn makes a happier visitor and a memorable experience for them.)
This is to adapt the power of fictional narrative to change people’s attitude towards social change(robot in FYP exhibition) by using the method of narrative persuasion- a method that uses narrative transport to persuade us to change our mind, behavior and see the world differently and to put things into context even when the story is a fantastical.
Research to be done:
Interaction of human and robot
Social Robot
Programmed behavior
Slot machine reward system
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/human-robot/
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/inhuman-kind/
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/robot-revolution/
continuation from the previous part 2 post with some new ideas after the talk about the past FYP showcase from Assoc Prof Laura Miotto, I’ve been inspired to do something that focuses solely on the showcase, since the showcase will mark the end ADM life of all current year 3, I would like to do something for many of the peers that would enhance student’s FYP showcase capability as well as the visitor’s experience of the visit.
As the founder of Kimchi and Chips, Elliot Woods asked during the Emergent Visions Symposium,
“What is the work that only I can make?”
This question hit me like Tiger Woods golf clubbed me in the head…
Yes, what is the work that only I can make in this coming FYP showcase?
back to my first post, I’ve already know what my strength is at this point of time, I would really want my FYP to have an impact on others, why not use my strength into making other’s FYP presentation to potentially having slightly more possibility? Wouldn’t that be great?!
so, this will be an idea which I know that I would enjoy spending a year to complete.
Just imagine, every student have their booth while a robot moving around in the FYP show displaying their project on its screen, when a visitor saw it on the screen, got interested and wanted to see the booth, they simply click a “Bring me to this booth” button and the robot will do so. How much more potential exposure will that bring to that student?
And on another aspect viewing this project, what will be realer than an actual application of an FYP project during the FYP show? What the visitor sees is what was actually made specially for that FYP show, if it doesn’t work or spoiled halfway, it simply meant that I did not plan well/have a backup or do a good enough job but there will not be an imaginative scenario where “This FYP was supposed to work in another location” *I am not saying that that kind of project isn’t good, but just what I would not like to do*
To design a set of Robots that have the ability to move around while avoiding people/obstacles during the FYP show. The purpose of the Robots is to expand the presentation possibility of student’s project while enhancing the experiences of the visitors. Safety of the people around the robot should be of the utmost importance and under no circumstances whereby injuries caused by the robot should happens.
Although it will be really hard to do so, but I aimed to complete a project of this standard but the task which my robot will do is much simpler.
There were many considerations made for this aspect of the project, firstly, the Cost and Value Analysis of the system must be made, of course, if money isn’t a problem, then this part would be really easy as I will just get the suitable parts which I need for the FYP, but sadly that isn’t the case… Money is a problem in FYP.
So, how can I maximize the output of my project by using the minimum amount of money? I have to also consider about how strong/fast the system is, and how would I like to have the user interface (touch screen) to be incorporated into the system.
These are the types of computation system which might be possible for my project at reasonable price –
This is the latest Raspberry Pi 3. It features a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU with 802.11n Wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1. Like Raspberry Pi 2, it also has 1GB RAM,4 USB ports,40 GPIO pins,Full HDMI port and Ethernet port. This third generation Pi is an excellent tool for hackers, makers and educators because of its small footprint, low power consumption, and low price.
Pi 3 comes with build in WIFI system so that would save me about $30 for WIFI module, output of screen is easy to setup(like a normal computer), runs on Linux system, which I have a slight experience on and as a bonus, I own one of this so that would save me some money too.
A LattePanda is a complete Windows 10 single board computer. It has everything a regular PC has and can do anything that a regular PC does. It is compatible with almost every gadget likw printers, joysticks, cameras and more. Any peripherals that work on PC will work on a LattePanda.
In terms of processing strength, completely overpowered Raspberry Pi 3, the price is however much steeper than Pi 3, also as an added bonus, I already own a Lattepanda and I would rather work on Lattepanda over Raspberry Pi as it runs on Windows system and that would save a huge amount of time for me, plus overall it is much faster at processing video and even runs Max MSP(a programming software) which is what I will probably be using. I am sure Latte Panda will be more responsive than Raspberry Pi 3 at the cost of more $$.
Yes, I praised so much about Lattepanda, but the cheap CPU nowadays is already cheaper than a LattePanda, although bigger,heavier and more power hungry, it is way cheaper than a Lattepanda at relatively same processing power and also, a cheap CPU usually comes with Internal HDD(atleast 128GB) while Lattepanda only has a mere 64GB(minus operating system installed, leaving about 40GB). Best part, Desktop CPU comes with built-in cooling fan, which overheating is a problem for Lattepanda.
*REFURBISH is the word here hence the cheap price*
since I don’t really need a brand new computer to get the job done. This is the normal sized CPU, which is rather big but I am sure it is small enough to be build into a robot.
For me, I think that this is the best system i could think of for now which I will need, firstly, touchscreen laptop meant that I do not need to purchase another separate touchscreen(which is usually really expensive) secondly, it comes with all the benefit of a CPU like cooling fan and such, also, laptop have a additional battery which reduce the load of the power supply, like if the main power supply ran out, there will still be time for the system to send out notification to the control system which then battery could be replaced. lastly, laptop will be slightly lighter and uses lesser power in comparison to a CPU, which make it really good over a normal CPU.
These are really good deal I think, I have been also browsing on carousell to find cheap and well condition touchscreen laptops, will update when I found some.
Since I don’t have sufficient knowledge in programming for windows system or app, so I also looked up for some online courses which I think I may follow during the holiday.
https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-windows-10-c-course-and-build-2-apps/
This will be useful for my own personal knowledge as well as for this FYP, courses are from Udemy and they usually have offer on their courses, I could just wait for the $5.99 or $9.99 sale.
If I were to use a car battery, I would get the deep cycle/marine battery as it is made for continuous discharge when connected to my computer within the robot/motors.
In my initial general direction, I think that there many approach to consider what kind of FYP I would like to achieve in the end… Maybe instead of thinking what I can possibly do for my FYP, I feel like it is better for me to think about this question- “What can my FYP do for me?”
By this time, I already understand what is my strength and what I would love to do, I think that I am relatively skilled in handicraft, building physical object and would love to build challenging mechanism like my Obseleting Instrument I did for Interactive Devices in year 2.
But will doing what I am good in and what I like for my FYP really help me? It might look good in my portfolio, but at the same time, it simply means that I will be staying in my comfort zone, and I am not saying that there’s nothing for me to learn by doing so, but rather, it means that I am locking myself into just doing related project and narrow down on the infinite possibilities that could be ventured into an unexplored territory that I did not previously knew that I like. In the long run, doing something which I could achieve might not be that great afterall….
If I think about FYP as a “One Year Summary Exercise” for the 3 years here to showcase what I’ve learnt in NTU, the result of that FYP will be way different than if I were to think about it as “One Year Opportunity to learn and explore”. but the question here is….. How would I want to think about FYP as? And seriously, I dont know for now…
If we think about FYP in another perspective, It is a small label that will be attached to us upon graduation, we write this label ourselves, work hard to earn this label and once it is on us, there will be no way to change it. Of course, I am not saying that FYP will be super important to all of our life, but the fact that one year of preparation just for the moment of showcase, if its good, good for us, but if its bad, forget about it, there’s still many other things in life which will be more important.
Label Yourself Before They Do
So, back to the question, “What do I want the FYP to do for me?”
Now I’ve got one year to do whatever I want,(I love Interactive Media~~)
this is the time to ask… What do I really want?
Doing something beautiful and looks nice with no meaning? Definitely not my cup of tea.
Artistic pieces with deep meaning that people will ponder over it? Maybe? But I am too shallow for this.
Pure visual/ sensory inducing project? unless one that will help the scientific/medical field.. for art purpose, not interested.
something easy?
I can only think of one right now….
I want to change the world at least in a minuscule way and leave some footstep on the sandy beach(not literally) before I die. I would love to have an impact on people’s life in someway, somehow.
Big dream require small steps, maybe, just maybe, this FYP could be these small steps….
I have this A5 note as a motivational quote behind the desktop screen which I wrote long time ago for myself
“Create something that I want but unavailable in the market, not something that would sell.” – ZiFeng
Now, building on what I mentioned above –“One Year Summary Exercise” VS “One Year Opportunity to learn and explore”, now I’ll nominate a new contender – “One Year Opportunity To Make an Impact/Benefit Others” and truthfully speaking, I like the latter the best and for now, it will be what I would like to achieve for the FYP.
Did I change my question from
“What I can do for my FYP?”
to
“What my FYP can do for me?”
to
“What my FYP can do for others?”?
Yes I did.
And I quite like my direction for now, unless I’ve got a better direction that I could come out with before the end of this semester, I will probably go along the path of “Impacting/benefiting people” and think of what I could do along this path. (I am already excited thinking to think of ideas)
In collaboration with photographer Eunyoung Kim.
LUNAR SURFACE by Kimchi and Chips, In collaboration with photographer Eunyoung Kim.
Digital photo print 1500 x 1000mm, Live scanning installation [dimensions variable].
2014, 2015
A vertical flag of fabric is stroked by the wind, displaced by curves of air, swinging back and forth. The fabric is tracked by a 3D camera whilst a projector replays a response onto it according to its evolving shape. As it sweeps, it leaves a trail of light which draws a heavy fragile moon floating in space. The flag renders this moon from another reality, the silk surface acting as an intermediating manifold between reality and virtuality.
This artwork is an installation set up within the concrete chambers of Bucheon city Incinerator, a stagnant industrial processing plant decommissioned in 2010.
At locations within the building, the artists collaborated with photographer Eunyoung Kim to capture moments of the moon being birthed. Long exposure photography trades the dimension of time for a dimension of space, extruding the moon into existence on a set of photographic prints, capturing a painting enacted by the details of the wind.
Inspired by the 2 moons of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (a Japanese fictional book) and the flags of space travel, the artists present a portal into another existence where another moon orbits. This other place is made material by the fabric of the flag.
Concave mirrors, Projection, Scanning, commissioned by the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju. The technology is enabled by Rulr, an open source graphical toolkit for calibrating spatial devices, created by Kimchi and Chips.
The installations present a semi-material mode of existence, materializing objects from light. Light Barrier Third Edition is a new installment in this series that exploits the confusion and non-conformities at the boundary between materials and non-materials, reality and illusion, and existence and absence.
The 6-minute sequence employs the motif of the circle to travel through themes of birth, death, and rebirth, helping shift the audience into the new mode of existence. The artists use the circle often in their works to evoke the fundamentals of materials and the external connection between life and death.
I think that Kimchi and Chips place a lot of effort into producing the Light Barrier and making it work, also as mentioned by Elliot Woods, when they started their project, they were not really earning a substantial amount of money and the project seemed really expensive to build as the concave mirrors and the structure needs to be customized built. This is also why the scale of the first edition of light barrier was much smaller. However as my own preferences, I like the first edition more due to the light beams were more focused as there were lesser mirrors used.
Kimchi and Chipswill have a new outdoor installation, commissioned by Somerset House. Halo will be happening in London from 08 – 27 Jun 2018. 200 mirrors will reflect sunlight and together with mist of the fountains in the courtyard, a shape of light will be ‘drawn’ and suspended in the air. The mirrors are programmed to react to the direction of sunlight.
This kind of reminds of our Spectra light show at MBS, which make use of light projection and water sprays to create sort of holographic effects, except that it is done at night.
Kimchi and Chips really utilise technology by looking at the physics behind the machine. These states of semi-materiality created is as fascinating as any wonder of nature we could possibly encounter. And they make us immediately want to make sense and grasp the seemingly new material, only to discover it is just nothing but light.
I think that Candles are really interesting, not only that they are visually appealing to watch as an therapeutic experience, they also produces smell depending on the nature of the candle, even extinguishing a candle produces a different smell. In short, a candle will utilize 3 out of the traditional five external senses which are sight, smell, touch but not hear and taste.
There are always meaning to everything and many objects have different meaning depending on the cultural context of the objects, However, candle have similar meaning across the globe as the candle symbolizes light in the darkness of life especially individual life, illlumination; it is the symbol of holy illumination of the spirit of truth.
There are festivals among different cultures around the world which uses candles as part of the “rituals”
Judaism – Hanukah, the ‘Festival of Lights’- a candle is lit for each of the 8 nights. Used to ward off evil spirits, life safe as long as candle burns
Hindu – Deepavali, spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair.
Western Christian – Halloween, candles were carried from eleven til midnight, if the candle went out it was an evil omen, if it didn’t it meant one year free from witchcraft.
Mahayana Buddhism – the lighting of a candle or an oil lamp represents the light of wisdom illuminating the darkness of ignorance.
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared”
I want to play with the idea of Light and darkness which is the most common way to depict a candle, however the Project should incorporate a sense of aesthetic and should look nice and pleasant (Opinions on the matter vary from person to person) especially in the analogue stage.
I found the Thoughtful Interaction Design really enriching and there were many useful ideas which I could learn from. Although Lowgren was specifically mentioning about the topic revolving “Designing digital artifact”, like he mentioned:
“Interaction design refers to the process that is arranged within existing resource constrains to create, shape, and decide all use-oriented qualities (structural, functional, ethical, and aesthetic) of a digital artifact for one or for many clients.”
I did some research about Jonas Lowgren and his main area of expertise includes collaborative media, interactive visualization and the design theory of digital materials. He focuses on the digital world and “design” to him is very different from how I interpret it. He places huge emphasis on the “digital artifacts” while I am for the inclusion of more than just that. I think that his concept of thoughtful interaction design could definitely transverse from the idea of just within the digital world into the physical world because not only do we interact with the “digital artifacts”, we also interact with the “physical artifacts”, take for example, a normal physical door. By not placing a door handle on the top corner of a two meters tall door, it might seemed commonsensical, but that is “Thoughtful Interaction Design” to me.
I think that for an artifact(digital or physical) to be an amazingly-thoughtful-interaction-designed, it has to be design with the consideration of all targeted user, how and where will they use the artifact, and account for the safety while fulfilling the expectation of the users, the specification of the client, and when it goes above these basic of an artifact, it has to inspire other designers to follow or “copy” the system or the ideology behind it while simultaneously, the original designer/company would improve the existing design and strife for a better version because nothing is really perfect,
Working with design means that you continuously need to define and redefine what you think of as good design. It is a never-ending process of thoughtful reflections.
And when something was brilliantly designed, not only the customer wants it, the competitors(existing or potential) would want it too.
I think that the iPod classic 2nd generation from 2002 was brilliantly designed in the aspect of thoughtful interaction design, it had also changed people’s life drastically, even though it was not the pioneer of the iPod series, nor the one that made the biggest leap in sales, I personally think that the 2nd generation iPod classic was the breakthrough within the realm of interaction design, not forgetting that there were many iPod generations to come after the 2nd, each had their multiple system updates and then upgraded to the next generation and then came iPod touch, which gradually evolves to the latest iPhone X.
(Just to be clear, I am definitely not a supporter of Apple and even dislike it as a brand, but their product marketing and system design sure is amazing.)
The biggest change that apple made from the generation 1 to generation 2 was the inclusion of Windows system for syncing the songs from iTunes, as the biggest downfall for generation 1 was that Apple forces the user to be running an Apple computer system to be able to use the iPod, this resulted in the potential user who doesn’t have an Apple computer to be excluded. In Generation 2, Apple included the Musicmatch Jukebox to manage the user’s music library and transfer music to the iPod which made generation 2 the first iPod for Windows.
Before iPod, the usual MP3 Players could hold like 100 songs, and then there was still CD player, where… yes is could hold 1 CD(about 20 song), I remember it took some time to click through the music in these MP3 players.
This was the exact MP3 I used when I was young. It has 128mb storage space and uses one AAA battery.
I always think that the ipod were magical in a sense that the circular touch-sensitive wheel, these were really the thoughtful interaction design that was mentioned in Lowgren’s book:
Design work is given form and structure by designer’s own thought, consideration and actions.
These circular touch-sensitive wheel was designed in the consideration as of how they marketed the iPod: to”put 1,000 songs in your pocket.”(which was really ground breaking during that time). The designer took the system advantage(also the limitation) into consideration… Imagine that the iPod does not have the circular wheel for the user to scroll through the song list, and the user did have 1,000 songs, how long or how tedious would it take to click the down button or the next button to go to the 499th song in the list?
With the circular wheel, the user could easily scroll through the list at great speed by spinning the wheel.
The whole form and aesthetics, material used, hardware, software, even till packaging, was well thought of for the optimal user experience, the size is just right to be carried around in the pocket of jeans (target audience demographics placed into consideration), the placement of the screen and the directions was ergonomically constructed so that user could use it with single hand operation, back light of screen vs battery life were well balanced to have good visibility and above average battery life so that user could use the iPod wherever they go and it should last long enough until the user could charge it(understanding the target user). Every aspect of the iPod was efficiently designed to suit their target audience. And by watching the advertisement from that time, it is rather clear who the target audience was.
and then came this:
Young active hipster.
I think that through the eleven pages of reading, this quote impacted me the most as a designing student,
“We are all living in a world almost completely artificial and designed, and every new addition, every new design adding to this world has an impact on how we experience the whole”
(I like how it goes from a designer’s perspective to a user’s perspective here)
“Design is about shaping the world we live in by creating the conditions” and “it means that you influence people’s work, leisure, and everyday life.” It let me realize that we are actually living in a world that is partially ran by designer, every thing we saw, every thing we touched, was designed by someone at some point of time. We, the designers in making, may hold the power to change the everyday life of the people we’ve never seen in our life.
Bike sharing had been in Singapore for almost a year and it is rather successful (transportation for us wise, not in business or government policy) and we could virtually find these bikes anywhere and everywhere (like in the drain, read: man throw ofo bike into canal)
There are 3 major bike sharing company running in Singapore, namely OBike, MoBike and OFO, and out of the 3, OFO is in striking yellow and would be nice in contrasting to most background and so we decided to use OFO for this work! (not because OFO was free from Monday 22nd January to Sunday 4th February, we would definitely pay if we have to. Really.)
During our first session of mOFOs we shifted bikes to create a roadblock in a void deck, by doing so, we had many curious passerby coming to us and asked why are we blocking the path? and we told them that we will remove the Ofos and they are like “ohhhhhh ok”. One even took the pictures of the bike too! she must’ve like our installation and think its really organized and definitely did not think about complaining us… 
And on our second session of mOFOs, we went to Chinese gardens and shifted the bicycles around, Senior Nat saw us during his MRT ride and he alighted the train and helped us to carry the bicycles. Thank you again Nat! =D
at the end of the day, we got photos taken by random passerby and it was uploaded onto Reddit Singapore… well… that’s free publication!
Team mOfos Signing out.
Continue from my previous Process 2.
again, I had progressed much further since that post, mainly in designing the workable electrical and mechanical system that could fit into the Telephone and to write the Arduino code up.
Since the previous post which I’ve roughly did the belt system that drives the music card into the laser reader, I had added the motor to the system and tried it, at this point, it seemed to work as I thought all I need was to slow the motor down and it will be alright.
After I cut the hole, I proceed to modelling the card slot and i took inspiration from the ATM just to have the user to have something they’ve experienced and know how to put the Music Card in without instructing them, since subconsciously, I assumed that they interacted with a ATM at some point in their life.
After the modelling which i am really happy with, I proceed to print it.
Since it was looking good, I went ahead and make a nicer LED system for it by soldering 4 LED(3 on the bottom and one for the top).
Next, I Epoxyed the speaker onto the bottom of the front belt drive since there is already a hole in the bottom shell for the speaker.
This is a 8 Ohm 0.5watt speaker that will be plugged directly into the Arduino.
I also Epoxyed the 4 LED into the card slot to prevent them from sliding around.
After an afternoon of panicking and finding alternative motor or even thinking to redesigning my whole belt system….
And then I found that I have a longer DC motor with metal gears built into it and i tried to figure our if I can incorporate this gear box into my current system, which is also rather impossible as the ratio for this gear box is about 1:45. when I only need about 1:5 to 1:8. if i use this, I will have the belt driver running too slow. 
same goes for this, but this is 1:250… even slower.
So to solve this problem, I tried to get the medium speed which is faster than what the song should be and will stuck about 30% of the time and removed the buttons (which detects card when user insert into it that trigger the motor to turn the belt.) that caused more friction. And I also jump start the motor by making it to spin at full speed for half a second to break the initial force required when the motor is starting.
It took me some time to sort out these messy wiring and make sure that none of the wires interfere with the track that the Music card is going through.
after trying out the workable speed of sound and getting stuck by removing the buttons.
and after this, I tried to code the majority of the code together.
For this, I did not expect to work this well and I am really excited about it!
I copied a few from online like Demons by Imagine Dragons, Harrypotter’s Hedwig Theme, and Pokemon Theme song, These were labeled on the card and those that weren’t labeled was What I composed myself. Since I have no music background, I did it by trial and error to give it a tune.
This was screen recorded when I tried to compose my 4th tune for this project:
after this was completed, I screen shot it and import into Illustrator to trace it into the Card layout which I made.
and this was how the cards were made.
Laser raster and cut in school on 2mm acrylic.
well, this is relatively simple, just type whatever I want on Webbased Text to speech reader and have it read it out in different accent and edit them in premiere pro to cut them up to the exact same length(9 seconds) and put them into the SD card within the Obseleting Instrument’s MP3 Decoder.
I really like the Japanese and Korean accent, its really funny!
Why did I made it to speak different accent? It was to engage the user and make them feel like there was really life in the system where they called/receive call from a real person, like if they discussed with their friend and their friend said that there was a Indian accent while what they heard was the British accent, they might want to try Obseleting Instrument for a few more time. The accent there is there to add variables in the system.
Throughout this Project, I’ve learnt many things like how to model objects in Tinkercad and make measurements properly, there are always failures in everything that I modeled before it works, and this is why 3D printing is a good prototype process where I printed it out and tested it to know if it work or not, if it doesnt, I will shave off some piece to see if it fits, if it does, I will make new measurements for the edited model.
Also, to have a Telephone case in the start and scale everything into the Telephone case was really a challenge especially at the start when I could not measure how big the internal was and could only make a guess and print some test print to try it out.
In this project, I realized that if I were to do a project that require multiple fields of knowledge like mechanical and electrical, It was better if I did not know how hard it will be, if I were to know that every part of the project will be something that I don’t know, I will be too afraid to jump into this project. I did something, realized that it doesn’t work and find solution to that single problem and proceed to work on the project and faced another problem, solving and learning one problem at a time lead me to the completion of the project.
Now that I had completed the project and looking back. Obseleting Instrument is really a complicated project as a whole, but thinking about it, I am just putting many small system into one project- like using one laser diode and a photo resistor as a switch, playing a tune when triggered, a physical button to sense if the phone was picked up, using a relay to control circuits of different voltage, running two DC motor at the same time and so on… Obseleting Instrument is just a collection of small systems, which I personally thinks was what made my journey of doing this project really interesting because I explored the basics of these components and learnt a whole lot through it.
https://www.udemy.com/windows-iot/
https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-design-course/
to make use of the original button on the phone, I’ve figured that the 12 buttons runs on 2 different circuit which I could simply solder these number together and make all the 12 buttons into one button, so nomatter which buttons the user pressed, it will be registered as one button pressed.
Because I cut off the Redial button on the phone to make space for my belt driver system, I epoxyed the Redial button back to the case as there are no PCB supporting it.
I am really glad that this many piece worked well together and this was the biggest challenge.. since there are so many components working together (electrical and mechanical), even if one of the parts failed, it would not work as well as it is now. So I considered myself really lucky that the parts happened to work well even when there are misalignment everywhere.