Final Project Idea and Press Fit Kit
My final project idea right now feels a bit ambitious, but it was something that popped into my head as a neat idea (that's probably already been done somewhere of course because an original idea these days is hard to find) that would incorporate many aspects of what I expect to get out of this class. Essentially I would like to create a chess board with a full set of pieces. I right now imagine that the pieces would probably be 3D printed or done on the lathe depending on material. I want lay out LEDs underneath the board that respond to where someone wants to move the pieces. The idea being that it's a learning chess board of sorts, for children. So probably using RFIDs and a program that can remember each piece's location, I would like to make it so that when you pick the piece up off of the board, it lights up one color to indicate where the piece was just at, and then shows in a different color the full range of moves that the piece could make on the board. On top of that a third color would light up on a piece that is able to be taken. I think that the project could possibly be taken one step further and utilize the lights to play against a computer opponent and have it indicate where you should move the computer's pieces. In essence the idea behind the project past being a learning tool is that as much as I appreciate what technology has done for the world and my life (such as the large amount of time I spent trying and somewhat succeeding in understanding how Mercurial works) I really like things that are tangible. So this reconciles the benefits of electronic chess with having a good old fashioned board. What's more, what if it could be linked up to the internet, and you could be sitting across from an opponent halfway around the world? Rather than the lights on the other side indicating a computer move, it could be indicating the move of the other player. The directions to go with it I think are somewhat endless. Will I stick with this idea? Unclear! But, I'm happy to at least have it to think about in the meantime and see how things I learn in this class can help me accomplish it.
Doing the press fit kit assignment this week taught me a few good lessons. One is that it's a very good thing I did not declare Course 4-I don't know how they model cool structures all day because I broke it down Barney style and felt like I'd just come up with a million dollar idea. I also learned that it will never cut right on the laser cutter the first time, so don't get your hopes up! That being said, it will cut right eventually with a little trial and error so don't give up on it either. I decided this week that I wanted to model some simple shapes, because I recall that when I was growing up one of my favorite things to play with was a set of building blocks. High tech or more expensive toys looked nicer, sure, but there is something about having simple shapes and being able to create a variety of things on your own that really appealed to me. So I kind of pictured my little kit this week as something cheap and simple that you could give to a small child and they can assemble. I did my designing all in InkScape, because I just got my computer back yesterday and am still reinstalling things like Solidworks onto it. I have never really used InkScape outside of some really basic graphic designing, so it was cool to see how to apply the program in a different context.
