FURTHER FABRICATION.
This week, we continued to work in the Fab Lab, familiarizing ourselves with the tools through mini workshops. This time, I was with the group that was learning the basics of Arduino and working with breadboards. As someone who has not touched an electronics kit since middle school, I felt quite out of depth. However, with the guidance of the Fab Lab staff, it was interesting to relearn how to use a multi-meter as well as the basics of electronics creation. The most exciting part was when the staff told us about their personal interests, explaining how GPS systems work (discussing a little on wardriving) and informing us that time is actually kept through the vibration rate of certain quartz stones!
Outside of class time, I have been diligently catching up on the parts of the workshop that I was unable to finish in class due to the lengthy tour last week. I went and finished up my watch design and got it laser engraved, which was definitely a very cool experience. Before the next class, I will also be heading to the Fab Lab to learn how to use the sewing machines and create the watch strap and will update this post with the pictures once that is done.
a blurry picture of the laser engraver in action 
PROTOTYPE PROGRESSION.
This week we had a chance to meet with Milestone Studios and our mentor Adam Bleakney once again for them to assess our progress with our prototypes and give us advice on which direction to take our research. We summarized our research progress and Milestone Studios quizzed us on the direction we were taking the project. They asked us a lot of questions that made us rethink our current project plan and helped us realize the areas that we needed to gather more research in. While we were focused on making a tread, we had forgotten to consider what materials we would want to use to create the tread as well as whether or not our current design would be most convenient for users. To this end, we plan on talking to a Materials Science professor to further our knowledge of where a tread’s grip comes from as well as continue to brainstorm different, easier ways to attach the tread. I have also started looking into some of the physics related to our problem (such as considering the physics of sliding on ice and looking into friction coefficients between different materials). I have also started brainstorming how we can use the knowledge we’re learning at the Fab Lab in our project, such as using Arduino to create a motion sensor to predict falls. I have found an Instructable on an Arduino PIR motion sensor, which my team can use as a starting point in researching how to modify it to sense a falling motion rather than just motion in general.
Salutations! I’m a sophomore studying accountancy who likes to create some art on the side (yes, I’m one of those photographer/poet/all around artist people). My passion is in advocating for equity, and I probably spend a little too much time on Hulu.
I am a part of Team Solestice with Trevor Sibby and Emma Bradford.
Hi AJ,
Milestone Labs also asked my group about the materials that would be used to produce our product and shared some recommendations on which ones to look into. This made me realize how there are so many factors that need to be considered when designing. We were so focused on the functionality and the overall idea of how to achieve the goal of our product that we have not really thought about the materials. From your post, it seems like you are considering a variety of factors of tread such as the grip and friction, which I am impressed to hear. I am not sure if I would have remembered to take those into account while at this stage if I were designing a tread myself.
I also think your idea of using an Arduino is cool though I am unsure what the use of it would be. I would be curious to learn about what your plan is with it predicting the fall. I think it’s great that you are trying to incorporate what we learn in class in the project, but I would make sure that it is something that would be needed by the user of the product.