science-ENGINEERING project

PHASE 1: PLAN

• What is the purpose of your device/toy, how does it function, and who is your user?
  • I want to convert sound energy to kinetic energy and make a sound-controlled toy car. Children can play with just making noises to keep the car driving. Also, I want to develop technology that allows the speed of the car to change as the volume change.
• What is the environmental impact of your product and is it durable and safe?
  • The environmental impact would be relatively small because it won’t produce waste as the sound energy is converting to kinetic energy. However, the machine parts may influence the environment and can’t be really durable due to the technology.
• What precedents inspired you? What did you take away from them & how did it inform your choices?
  • A traditional toy car usually converts solar energy to kinetic energy, and as I researched for other products, I found that sound energy is also convertible. As a result, I want to combine this idea with the original way of creating a car together.
• How are you making your product original and/or using creativity?
  • I want to keep researching if there are ways to make the car change directions based on different sounds. This technology may be really original and new for our stage, thus, this idea is creative for our product.

 

PHASE 2: DEVELOP & PLAN

• Explain how you used design thinking practices to arrive at this iteration of your toy/device.
  • We brainstormed different ways to realize our goal of converting sound energy to kinetic energy and decided to use a sound sensor to detect the voices and connect them with the wheels.
• Develop a detailed plan for creating the preferred design, including success criteria.
  • Our goal is to make out a toy car that could move as it has sound energy. However, since the sound sensor and detector require a lot of prior knowledge, we didn’t expect them to be able to change the speed due to the volume. As a result, the success criteria may be at least make up a motion toy car.
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• Share your design concept.***Show photos, measurements, materials, & techniques needed for construction.
  • 

 

 

PHASE 3: CREATE & IMPROVE

• Through research about Arduino coding systems, we were able to create a sound detector and connect it with the engine successfully. Also, we made a rough prototype of the car with Legos. However, we encounter the following problems:
  • the engine was not strong enough for the car to move forward
  • the delaying system seems unpredictable
  • the whole car with all components on it would be way heavier than we expect
  • some codes look confused
• to solve these problems, we planned for:
  • ask for more advice from the teachers about Arduino coding
  • try and remake a car with lighter weight
  • probably add another engine in order to add strength
  • use a smaller prototype for examples of kids’ product that shows the same authority as the bigger one (if we cannot fix the problems at last)
• feedback:
  • How can you connect the motor to the car?
  • Is there any way to make the car lighter?

 

 

PHASE 4: REFLECT & SHARE

• Give an overview of your design process, sharing the product & your learning

1. research
   1. Before the investing, we researched how to use sound sensors and found the following websites introducing similar functions that we needed:
      1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=setjiVH0_IY
      2. https://randomnerdtutorials.com/guide-for-microphone-sound-sensor-with-arduino/
      3. https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Sound-Sensor-with-LED/
2. coding
   1. We understood and imitated the use of sound sensors and connected our own to the Arduino board. Then, by asking the teachers and learning from videos, we wrote the code that allows built-in LED light to turn on whenever the sound sensor detects voices.
   3. 
3. motor
   1. With prior knowledge, it is easier to connect the motor and battery to the Arduino board and realize the function of spinning the wheels when it detects sound. However, we still failed a few times while connecting the wires.
4. time delay (Nan) & car building (me) [work splitting] & problems
   1. Nan worked on coding the delaying function which allows the car to move when it detects sound and stops when there are no voices. In this way, we can show our advantages in sound-controlling better. However, we met some problems: the motor didn’t stop when the voice stop and it is hard to figure out the usages of different codes. As a result, we went to find Mr. Beatty about the coding problems. We found out that the noises from the motor spinning were too loud and made the sound sensor keep detecting voices, so we fixed it by changing the sensitivity of the sensor at last.
   2. 
   3. At the same time, I collected different materials for making the car and decided to use Lego because it is convenient and easier to connect well. After I made a rough prototype of the car, I realized that it is hard to attach the motor with the gearwheel perfectly to allow the car wheels to move. The energy to the motor was not enough to keep the wheels moving on the ground even if I tried to make the car as light as I could. Therefore, we decided to add another motor, but the result didn’t turn out to be what we expected.
   4. 
   5. 
5. Finalizing & Reflection
   1. our final prototype
   2. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make our car move before the deadline and the wires fell off just before exhibiting. But still, as I saw many classmates gathering around our prototype and speaking into the microphone to make the motor move, I was really happy that this unfinished product still brought some entertainment to my friends.
   3. We were unable to aim our goal of the sound-powered car but making the sound-controlled one still satisfied me. We converted electric energy from the laptop into kinetic energy of the wheel’s movement. Even though we didn’t finalize our product in these 5 lessons, triggering the motor by the sounds already met my success criteria, and this new technology that I learned made me very proud.
   4. If we have more time, we can use this technology to make a voice-controlled fan or windmill. This will be a perfect toy for children below 12 and a useful tool for us as high schoolers in summer.
   5. The most challenging thing during the period was that we need to study the technology that we didn’t really know before and we need to code our own functions.