Category: Design

For my final project in Circuits class,  I chose to design and create a stuffed koala head with two LEDs, making its ears light up. I worked on this piece for several weeks and put a lot of effort into it.

My original plan was to create an entire koala from head to bottom, except the head which didn’t change, the body was designed to have a medal with a red LED on it. Pressing its claws should make the medal or ears light up. However, because I soon found out that creating a 3D stuffed toy is not easy work to do, I changed my plan to only creating the head. That made me abandon the body, claws, and legs of the koala, including the red medal on the right side of the koala body.

I learned a lot during this project, which obviously included many mistakes. I overlooked my skill and speed when I was planning the project, which made me had to give up the body part later on. Also, the best thing I learned was how to sew 3D stuffed toys. It was very challenging for me at first, because I have never created anything like it before. I had to search up tutorials about how to make two felt pieces into a sphere, Moreover, because of the special material, the feel of sewing it was very different than the normal felt pieces we used during previous projects.  I was a little bit frustrated at first because the material sheds fur off and sticks to the tables and my clothes everywhere. But I had to bear with it anyway since the material worked really well with the design of stuffed toys. Also, I had to be aware of where to put the CPX and LEDs so that the thread doesn’t cross onto each other and fail the process of lighting up.

Overall, I feel that this project is very worthy and I enjoyed the process of designing and creating. I put effort into it and I’m glad that I can finish it.

Share My Product:

The project I made is a pin that shows a fox under the moonlight with its tail flickering red light(the LED). I created this design for myself because foxes are my favorite animal and I really love the moon. I didn’t discard the other two designs of mine because there was something wrong with it; it’s just that I think this design of my fox and the moon is really interesting to create and I believe it will turn out nicely(which really did). I am really proud of this pin because it is pretty and kind of shows some of my identity, the process was slightly challenging but I enjoyed it very much.

Share My Learning:

Throughout the process of creating this pin project, there are new things that I have learned. I wasn’t familiar with several kinds of stitches and didn’t even know that bulbs and electronics could work on felt peices. The sewing itself has been challenging at first and I often sewed stitches that were uneven and almost pricked my fingers. However, as I get more and more familiar with threads and needles, I feel more comfortable and tried on sewing different types of stitches. Planning then cutting out felt pieces that fit with my design happened to be easier than I thought it would be, which makes me cheerful! One tip to the students who will also experience this project next semester would be to be mindful of the sequence of sewing the battery bulb and felt pieces. If you’re unaware of them, the thread might show up on the front side and you’ll need to waste a lot of time to fix it! Another thing is to be aware of the threads, they get mixed up and tangled way easier than I thought, and I was quite frustrated with it since I had to spend a lot of time separating them. However, I do feel more confident in exploring more in-depth techniques of stitching,  and I would totally like to try more complicated designs of sewable electronics.

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One obstacle I successfully overcame is that I didn’t find any videos about how to make this product. So I had to figure it out myself. Mr.Layman gave me an idea about making the bullets out of toothbrush rods when I was in hesitation. It turned out better than I expected to and I am quite satisfied with my product.

If I made this product again, one thing I’d do differently is using spray paint instead of brushing. It is faster and it is also able to paint the inside and holes where the brush couldn’t reach and paint. The product I made this time has certain places were the paint fell off and some other places that had thicker layers of paint.

My greatest success through this class was I developed my creativity and learned to use materials as alternatives for the originals that weren’t available.  I used the toothbrush rods as bullets and added the velcro as an attachment since the cloth I had wasn’t big enough for covering my whole wrist.

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From this project, my biggest success was solving the problem of the holes I drilled wrong on the bar. I added the thank you note and the ribbon to cover it. It covered the extra holes and made my cranky contraption more visually appealing. I liked it very much and thought that it was a very smart solution.

One skill I learned by making this product is using the drill. Before I didn’t know how to use the drill and didn’t know to attach and use the parts of the drill. Now I know that there are different drills for drilling different sizes of holes and on different materials. I also found out how to attach the battery on to the drill and charge it.

Overall, I think this product is successful because it is visually appealing and works quite well. The materials used for this cranky contraption is all biodegradable and sustainable as well. It looked the way I expected and quite the same the way it was drawn on the draft paper.