Final Project – Intimacy Prosthetics
Intimacy Prosthetics consist of 2 wearable devices that 2 people would wear to communicate sense of human connection through touch. The device is capable of sending and receiving double tap, x & y movement wirelessly.
Mechanical Design & Machine Design
This week we get to play with “Machines that make: cardboard stages”. Working as a team, we decided to do laser projection with mirror and moving gantry. The result was pretty great.
Interface & Application Programming
Node.js is great for interfacing browsers, running Javascript both on client side and server side. MaxMsp is great for quick prototyping because it links to pretty much everything that you can think off, open CV, serial communication, video processing … etc.
Networking & Communications
Nrf24L01 is really easy to program with RF24 Arduino library. The data transfer rate is fast for both ways, it is great for cheap & easy wireless applications.
Output Devices with Atmega328p
Output devices could be display or motion with servo or stepper motors. In my case, I often use them for human robot interactions. They are fun to code and fun to play with, especially interpreting the input to map the output.
Input Devices
Using the capacitive touch I created a linear potentiometer using the transmit-receive method. I am sure with more tweaks it could be more accurate at reading the finger position.
Composites
Composites is a good method to get a strong structure by combining 2 different materials. This week I tried Burlap and Entropy Resins and it came out extremely strong but with the vacuumed one part mold, the surface wasn’t as smooth as I’ve hopped.
Embedded Programming
There are many ways to program tiny44, Arduino or C code is what I tried this week. I was able to hook up and light sensor to make an LED go on and off. By learning how to program with C, you get to see what went on behind the Arduino IDE.
Molding & Casting
Molding & Casting is an easy way to mass produce the same part over and over again with pretty high details. Unlike 3D printer, Molding & Casting often takes a lot less time and you can cast with many different materials.
Electronics Design
ATtiny44 is a small and cheap micro controller which you can program it like an Arduino board but with limited pins with no hardware serial.
Computer Controlled Machining – ShopBot
The ShopBot is pretty handy comes to making rounded and complex shapes. It is like a table router that you can set the height, bit size, and depth. This is very useful if you want to make the same shape over and over again.
3D Scanning & 3D Printing
3D printer is a great tool for prototyping or even for your finish product. However 3D printing is time consuming, unless you have a fine tune machine. It depends on the printing bed, temperature, printing speed, feed rate and many other variables.
Electronics Production – Milling the FabISP
To create our first board, FabISP, we use a milling machine to mill away the copper from the PCB board by using 2 png files. One of the trace and one for the outline / board cut out.
Computer-Controlled Cutting – Laser Cutter
Laser cutter is a fast and easy way to cut plastic, thin wood or etch graphics. It offers accurate precisions so you can make 2D assembling kit that fits perfectly.
Computer-Controlled Cutting – Vinyl Cutter
Vinyl Cutter is able to produce fine lines and small curves, it’s great for smooth metal or plastic surface. It is a nice graphic design and branding tool or simply a sticker maker.
Computer-Aided Design
Tele-touch is a device that let’s the user touch each other by sending touch position data and received position data in realtime wirelessly. The upper part of the device consist of two servos with 2 degrees of freedom, allow it to move up, down, right and left.