This was an interesting opportunity to collaborate as a whole section, although it could have been better placed in the beginning of the course. Admittedly, students would have had less knowledge about electronics, but I feel like in a team project such as this, people tend to gravitate towards what they know anyway. This could have been a good team building exercise, to familiarise all the students in the same section with each other, as well as get an understanding of what the strengths of different people are. That way, when one inevitably needs help at some point, it would be easier to find the right person to ask.
Regardless of the timing, the exercise was interesting, and well documented on the group webpage here. I made the connectors for the machines, which was more difficult that one could imagine. When splitting the rainbow cables, a lot of extra plastic remains on the outsides of the individual wires, and then trying to arrange the wires in a specific order was quite challenging. The first cable I made did not work, and in total I ended making two of the shorter cable, and three of the longer cable before getting everything to work, testing each wire individually to make sure it was going where it was supposed to. In the end, it was ugly, but it worked. I also helped with the cardboard gluing and assembly, but due to scheduling conflicts, unfortunately had to leave prior to the final painting sequence.