Projects:

[introduction] cad/cam, modeling, software

[press fit structure] laser cutter, vinyl cutter, plasma cutter/router

[printed circuit boards] pcb fabrication, board stuffing -

[cables] making molex<->serial and soic8<->parallel cables

[hello world] microcontroller programmingS

[coffee or tea] 3d scanning and printing

[input devices] sensors, instrumentation, light, sound, temperature, position, proximity-

[9 BUTTON KEYPAD] This week we learned about linear and rotary sensors (including co-axial cylinders that sense displacement), accelerometers with interdigitated fingers, keypads which rely on row and column multiplexing, metal detectors, thermometers (temperature sensor was built into the chip), LED light sensors (which actually collect and generate light), phototransistors with IrDA (Infrared Data Association), logging light sensors for long(er) term data collection, and audio recorders (including voice control with pitch recognition) For this project I worked with Thaddeus Fulford-Jones to make a 9 button keypad using capacitive sensing. Capacitance describes how the space between two conductors effects an electric field between them. The capacitance between two plates is determined by three things: Size of the plates: capacitance increases as the plate size increases Gap Size: capacitance decreases as the gap increases Material between the plates (the dielectric): Dielectric material will cause the capacitance to increase or decrease depending on the material

Links:

cnc router tutorial (N51)

www.matthewtrimble.com