Unit 61

• How does this example meet the rationale of the unit brief? 
• What is the environmental impact of the device? 
• How will this device inspire your own ideas for designing an interactive product?

Wind up chair

The chair meets the rational beacause the chair is made out of wood which could of already been recycled and could be recycled after the product is no longer of use. The product is also interactive because you have to twist the key in order to charge your phone. This also makes the chair enviromentally friendly because it can charge your phone without being connected to a wall socket, which helps stop global warming. This product inspires me in a way due to the simple yet effective nature of the item.

e-QBO cube

The e-QBO cube is a giant cube that uses solar energy to charge street lights, phone charging and wifi hotspots. The cube uses photovoltaic pansels during the day to charge up on solar energy and is stored in batteries, this means that the cube is environmentally friendly due to it not being plugged into anything.



LED Cube 8x8x8
This is a cube made out of connecting LED lights in an 8x8x8 style. You then flick a switch and the lights will flash in sequences showing interesting patterns. This cube has a relation to the rational because the cube is interactive, in the fact you push a button and the LEDs will flash in a sequence. The cube is also environmentally friendly because of it can be made using recycled LED lights. This cube has probably inspired me the most out of all the devises I have done research on, this is because from the start of the project I knew I wanted to use LED lights in a sequence of some sorts.

Possible Idea
I have a rough idea of a shape like a circle or square with another smaller circle/square made out LED's and if the devise is turned on it will convey patterns and sequences. The lights can be the same colour or different colours. the lights could be placed on a simple disc or square shaped base. After I had a basic idea I moved onto some basic sketches of what my design could look like and how people interact with it.

I believe my idea will fit in with the brief for a few reasons. One of which is that I aim to only use recycled parts for my product and the only item that won't be is the arduino. Another reason is that my product will be reusable and will only require batteries so there will be no need to plug the product in to a mains.

After working on sketches I moved on to creating a basic prototype using basic materials like cardbourd, card and sticky notes. This was to help me gain a better understanding on what it could look like in my hands. The sticky notes were used to display where the LED lights will go (the number of sticky notes wont be the same as the amount of LEDs) and under neathe the notes labeled OFF were notes labeled flash to symbolise when the LED would light up.

After creating this I asked a class mate to have a look at it and I filmed myself asking a few questions.

I found the feedback I recieved helpfull because I agreed with all the constructive criticisms. After making the cardboard prototype I realised that the shape and size was not good or affective for what I wanted to create.

Legal, Ethical and Moral isues

One of the most important features of creating a product is too make sure it doesn't include any legal, ethical or moral issues. 

Legal

I personally dont think that my product will infringe on any laws. One of the reasons is because I have yet to find any product this is similar to mine which is copy writed(I am still searching).

Another thing I could include if my product has packaging is to have the small logos of wheather there are choking hazards ect.

Moral

I believe my product will affect people in a more posotive way than negative way. This is because I want to use recycled products for the project. Aswell as using recyled products, I want to help encourage recycling.

Ethical
In my opinion I believe that my product will be ethical becasue in all honstety I dont understand how anyone could find a sign that has flashing LED offensive to them as a person or a religion. I understand that if the sign had a religious simbol or anti religious simble then it would be offensive but after doing research I know that the recycling logo is not offensive.




Circuit desk prototypes

In order to be able to create any practicle work I need to learn all the basices of circuitry and arduinos. To do this I am going to learn how to turn an LED on and off, to make an LED flash and more.

The first circuit I worked on was to build a simple circuit using a battery, LED, Risistor and a button. Whilst creating the circuit I encountered a problem with the risistor not working which lead to the LED breaking due to the light being too bright and powerfull. The reason this was happening was because I had placed the risistor facing up and down as appose to it going from left to right.

I then moved on to learning how to use an arduino to make an LED blink on and off with any buttons being pressed. To make this I followed a simple tutorial on a arduino website. First I started by placing an LED to a board and joined it to an arduino by using a wire to connect the LED to the GND output. I then connected a resistor to the 13 output and then connected the resistor to the LED.





After making one LED blink I wanted to see if I could make multiple LED blink. I started to experiment by connecting both LED cathode terminals. I then connected the anode cathode to the resistor. After I did this I discovered that it works and decided to add another two LED.



I then moved on to learning how to get the LED flashing a random sequence. This is what I did.

Aswell as placing the LED ans wiring in certain places, I also had to edit the code in order to get the LED to flash like they do. This is the code I used.

int timer = 100;        
int ledPins[] = {
  2, 7, 4, 6, 5, 3 };    
int pinCount = 6;        

void setup() {

  for (int thisPin = 0; thisPin < pinCount; thisPin++)  {
    pinMode(ledPins[thisPin], OUTPUT);    
  }
}

void loop() {

  for (int thisPin = 0; thisPin < pinCount; thisPin++) {
 
    digitalWrite(ledPins[thisPin], HIGH);
    delay(timer);                
 
    digitalWrite(ledPins[thisPin], LOW);  

  }


  for (int thisPin = pinCount - 1; thisPin >= 0; thisPin--) {
 
    digitalWrite(ledPins[thisPin], HIGH);
    delay(timer);
 
    digitalWrite(ledPins[thisPin], LOW);
  }
}

After making this I asked a fellow class member to test/ review my current virtual prototype and answer a few questions.

After recieving the feed back I am going to continue to look into learning how to get the LED flash in a set sequence instead of a more random sequence.

After doing a bit of research I have found a possible way of getting the LED to flash from left to right.

This is what I have got so far.

This is the code I have used for this circuit.
// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
  // initialize the digital pin as an output.
  pinMode(0, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(5, OUTPUT);


  pinMode(8, INPUT);
}




int led = 0;
// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
  if (digitalRead(8)) {
    for(int i=0; i<6;i++) {
      if(i==led) {
        digitalWrite(i, HIGH);
      } else {            
        digitalWrite(i, LOW);  
      }            
    }
    led++;
    if (led >5) led = 0;
  } else {
    for(int i=0; i<6;i++) {
      digitalWrite(i,HIGH);
    }
  }
  delay(1000);            // wait for a second
}


This is another 123 circuit simulator but this one is a nomal chaser sequence that goes back and fourth.


Here are some photos and videos of me trying to get the leds to flash.

When it came to making my product it really didn't go well for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons was that the codes that were succesfull on the 123d circuits did not work and had errors that I was unable to solve. Another big issue I had during the production fase was that multiple LED broke which lead to multiple visits to shops to purchase more, this ate up a lot of the time I was hoping to spend on creating the product. Aswell as this, simple things went wrong such as being able to light up multiple LED which was the sole purpose for me on this unit. When I encountered these problems I worked with other students to try and work out why these things didn't work and they were unable to help.

Overall I am very dissapointed with the practical element of my work for a number of reasons with the biggest being that I could only get one LED to work properly because everyt time I added another one the first one would dim massively or stop flashing al together. I also put this down to big lack of knowledge of electronics and to make/create things like this. Going into this unit I had no experiance of even basic electronics at school and had to learn on my own as we moved on with this unit which made me fall behind still trying to learn the basics. I believe if I had more time I would be able to create something mor close to my original plan/design. This is beacause although I am still confused on how to make circuits and LEDs work in certain I do feel I have a much better undertanding than I did when I started this unit.