Final Project

Apart Together: A sentimental piece for loved ones.

More than two years of pandemic made us miss our close friends and families who live distance, especially overseas.
It seems impossible to visit to see each other with different vaccination and quarantine regulations in different countries. Although we would like to keep our minds close
to each other despite the distance, it is not easy. I don't assume this device will help bring back the feeling of being present and sharing more intimate feelings as they are physically
in the same place. But, hoping this can bring some visual cues and physical interaction to replace some of what we are missing today.


1. What does it do?

It contains an ornamental set of two, one Sender and one Receiver.
When a person thinks of another touching the Sender, the capacity sensor senses the touch and sends it to the Receiver to play a looped music file through its speaker.


2. Who's done what beforehand?

It contains essential functions, capacity sensing, and playing short audio using the internal memory of the ESP32 module.
There are several tutorials for each function, and those below are what followed through to build.


3. What did you design?

There are no strikingly Nobel thing about these in terms of functions. However, I designed the shell of products and capacity sensors to fit its' purpose and meaning.
Using NX, I created the Sender and Receiver then 3D printed using white PLA. Roland vinyl cutter was used to cut the copper sticker that acts as a capacity sensor. The sender piece can have various forms,
from house ornament to Christmas tree.


4. What materials and components were used?

Outer shell: White PLA, Copper sticker Inner components(Sender): ESP32 board, Color LED, Jumperwire, Portable battery Inner components(Receiver): ESP32 board, 3W 0.8ohm speaker, portable battery, MAX98306 audio amplifier board


5. How much did they cost?(one Sender and one Receiver)






6. What processes were used?

Outer shell:


Sketching



3D modeling






3D printing



Water sanding



2D cad for sticker



Mahine control sticker cutting
Inner components: week8_Board design using Eagle
Milling PCB
Soldering components
week8_Embedded programming, capacity sensing
Embedded programming, audio playing



Music file conversion to Hex code (wave file->Audacity->HxD)



Networking between two ESP32 boards



7.What worked? What didn't?

One hour before the show and tell, I fried one of the ESP32 boards and couldn’t figure out why it caused the problem.
Quickly, I had to replace the board and didn’t leave time to package it tightly into the outer shell, which caused one of the jumper wires to disconnect.
Still, I don’t know why my board got fried, but I learned the importance of tightly putting all electronic components into the shell.

Also, another problem I had was the vinyl cutter to cut the copper tape. If I put more pressure on the blade to cut, it rips the copper layer, and when I don’t,
it doesn’t cut through. For those parts that didn’t cut through, I used an X-acto knife to fix them.


speaker(receiver)_arduino code
touch(sender)_arduino code