‘create and improve’

 

feburary 17th

[PLAN] lab day 1: in the lab, look around and check for the availability of desired materials (LED lights, acrylic sheets); test out the ‘do-ability’ of lighting up the led lights (wire-connecting)

i found two kinds of lights in the fab lab: the regular light bulb and the LED lights, and since the regular light bulb won’t light up with the batteries we have in the lab, and that my preference is the smaller ones, i started to connecting wires and trying to light up the LED lights.

the LED lights successfully lighted up after i connected the black (negative) wire to the shorter leg of the light and the red wire (positive) to the longer leg of the light.

feburary 21st

[PLAN] lab working day 1: get plan approved from mr.hussack; start cutting the wood blocks and acrylic sheets; starting layser cutting the wood sheet

[DIARY]

at the start of the class, we got our plan (sketch) approved by mr. hussack and he left us with a couple of questions:

• how are we going to attach everything together?
• is the LED lights going to produce enough light source?

then we used the software called ‘fusion 360’ to draw out the shape of the wood sheet with four holes for the led lights to go through in the middle after measuring the diameter of the led lights.

we also cutted the four wood blocks that holds the acrylic box using the machine in the fab lab room.

then we went to grab the four battery boxes we needed and filled them with batteries. however, after arranging the four battery boxes on the wood sheet, we found out that the wood sheet is not wide enough, and not long enough.

also, the battery boxes are too ‘high’ that the wood blocks would not be tall enough to hold it up.

after measurements, we decided to increase the height of the wood block from 10 centimeters to 15 centimeters in order for the battery boxes to perfectly fit. so now the wood sheet and the wood blocks has to be cut again.

feburary 23rd:

[PLAN] lab working day 2: test out the measurements of materials to see if they fit together; make adjustments and iterate the design

[DIARY]

we redesigned and cutted our wood sheets and wood blocks with the updated measurements; we didn’t get to cut acrylic last class, so we did it during this class. we cut five pieces of acrylic with the dimension of 15*15

then, we glued the five pieces of acrylic together using hot glue

when mr. hussack was looking at our project, he asked us: how are we going to make the acrylic box stay on the wood sheet? that is one of the problems we haven’t though about because the reality is that it is going to fall off or slant if we don’t put anything around it to support it. so then we added four pieces of short and long boards around the wood sheet to stabilize the acrylic box. my partner used ‘fusion 360’ again to design the four pieces of woods and layser cutted it.

however, the size of the four wood pieces is a bit too short, since by gluing the acrylic sheets together, and placement of it and the hot glue increased the length of the acrylic box by a little bit. so the wood pieces needs to be redesigned and cut.

feburary 27th

[PLAN] lab working day 3: start assembling some parts of the design together; ask for feedback from mr.hussack and classmates; make little amendments or additions to design according to the feedback or own will.

[DIARY]:

unfortunately, when we came into class, our acrylic boxes were falling apart. the hot glue we used turns out to be very unsticky and not working. so we tore the five pieces of acrylic sheets apart and decided to use acrylic glue. ms. amanda gave us a tool to help us make the acrylic sheets stick together tighter, and we left the acrylic sheets like this for about 30 minutes.

we redesigned the four pieces of boards on the outside of the wood sheet by making it a little bit longer (two longer than the other two) according to our measurements of the acrylic box.

then, we started working on the circuit and connecting the wires: we used electrical tape to make sure that the leg and the wires stays together tightly and taped it onto the back of the wood sheet. when mr. hussack came, he suggested us that we can use one battery pack to light up all four of the led lights and connect the led lights with an extra wire rather than using four. we thought this wood be a good idea since using four battery boxes means that we have to turn on four buttons when we want to light up the lamp, which is kind of inconvenience.

we pulled the wires connected out of the legs of the led lights and started trying by using only one battery box. we did it by connecting the shorter leg with one side of the wire to the longer leg of the other led light with the other side of the wire, and we did it for all four led lights. when we tried to light up all four by using only one two-batteries battery box, it only lighted up one led lights, so then we tried it with a 6-batteries battery box that’s available in the fab lab.

however, it also won’t work. the 6-batteries battery box would only light up 3 led lights, further proving that one led light requires 2 batteries to light up. unfortunately, there is no 8-batteries battery box in the fab lab, so the idea of lighting all four led lights with only one battery box will not work. 

after knowing that, we moved back to lighting up each one with its respective battery boxes. we successfully connected all four led lights with their battery box and made sure all of them worked.

we also glued the wood blocks to the wood sheet using wood glue.

march 1st

[PLAN] lab working day 4: make any last-minute changes to design; assemble all pieces together into a complete project; test out the design.

[DIARY]:

we came into class with all of our pieces ready to assemble: we first glued the four battery boxes onto the wood sheet.

then we glued the ‘side woods’ to the sides of the wood sheet. there are two wood pieces (the two shorter ones) that are still not long enough for the acrylic boxes. however, we realized that there is no need for four pieces of woods to be glued to the sides, two pieces will do its job properly in holding the acrylic in place.

then, we made some adjustments (decorations) to the acrylic box. since we are going to wrap bubble wraps around the acrylic box, one of my classmates said that it would not be as aesthetically pleasingly just leaving the acrylic box clear. so my partner and i decided to paint it white (not too thick) on the outside of the acrylic box.

then we were to glue the bubble wrap around the painted acrylic box using hot glue. however, because the outside of the box is just painted, hot glue won’t stay on it. but we also don’t have enough time to sit and wait for the acrylic paint to dry, so we decided to wash the paint off and paint it on the inside of the box.

after finish painting the white paint to the inside of the acrylic box, we glued the bubble wrap to the outside.

done!

here’s our final prototype: