Reflection on Major Project

Wearables are booming now days, both the industry and the consumers want more and more to make one unique or stay connected ahead like for example Ringly has created a ring which can get connected to the mobiles and notifies user if they get any calls or messages. But I have seen that unless one goes into the realm of luxury, there aren’t many fashionable or organic things like there used to be in old times.

Hence my idea for this project was to make cheap accessible and easy to use products that are functional as well as fashionable, things that blend onto lives of people successfully. These things can be made and sold as finished products simply as part of kit or simply as clothes or accessories.

I have learned a lot of new techniques like stitching techniques by hand as well as by machine while working on this project. I have learned about trending wearable technology, the micro-controllers used in these types of technologies. I have also gained a lot of information about the variety of conductive materials available in the market these days and the ways of using them in proper way.

To come up with this idea, I had to use all the skills I have gained in my life and learn a lot to finish this project too. From my previous experiences, I knew I had to seek help from everywhere I could get and used all the resources available to me. In order to finish this project on time I knew I had to be organized, so I used project management tools such as activity planning as shown by Gantt chart and Time management chart which helped me to establish a timeline, budget and potential growth for my project. I also utilized basic product development tools such as customer needs vs. quantities matrices which helped me in making important tradeoffs in terms of design, helping me optimize on my budget.

Everything went according to plan until the last week. After the feedback session I pretty much had to finish my major project in the remaining time. The biggest obstacle I had was with getting all the required parts for my project, despite paying for expedited next day delivery I could not receive the parts on time due to it being weekend and also because of shortage of parts. This left me no time to shoot my promo video and prepare my presentation which I had scheduled for completion that week. Everything was finished just on time and I thought I could make it when my computer stopped working and I had to borrow my flat mates laptop to send my files on a USB drive which led to wrong files being uploaded onto the USB drive and the twelve minute delay in submission. My current work is not up to the mark but I learnt a lot from this project which will surely help me in the future.

This project helped me to realize my strengths and weakness and I have learned a lot about handling myself throughout the project.

Reflection on Last Week

This week was really difficult for me. I had a lot to do in very little time and everything went out of control.  I was twelve minutes late for my submission. I went way over budget as I had to pay for priority delivery for some of the products. The promotional video didn’t turn out great and to top it up I uploaded the wrong copy in my submission pen drive and youtube in a rush even though I had a finished copy which I showed during the presentation. Moreover, as I was much stressed I had to make things over and over again.

This also resulted in sleepless nights which affected my health and I could not give my presentation properly.

Finally to add to my misery almost everything stopped working the day before submission and I could not fix all of the artefacts before submission.

I got chance to show my artefacts again next day in the morning, and I worked on them whole night and managed to fix everything except the cyclist hoodie. I tried every possible method to troubleshoot the issues in the hoodie but couldn’t fix it. I am still trying to fix the hoodie so that I could display it on the day of exhibition.

It wasn’t easy to make the four interactive artefacts in a week’s time as the coding involved in it really takes a lot of time and also the products are not easily available. I really enjoyed working on all the four artefacts as I have learned something new while working on them. Now, I know that I can play with the Arduino Lilypad Kit and its components and can make cool things in future.

I believe that it might be possible that my work was not upto the mark but I have learned a lot of things while working on my project which will be beneficial for me in the future.

Reflection on Artefact 4

I learned using one more conductive material i.e. fiber optic cable while working on this artefact. I didn’t have much difficulty in making this artefact as I already made a basic circuit like this for my first artefact. The only difficulty that I faced was measuring the size for the felt to be placed on the base mask and placing the fiber optic cables on the LED.

I learnt a new technique of placing fiber optics on LED. I tried each method of fixing optic fibers on LED but failed many times. Then finally I got an idea by looking at the bunch of roses that was in my room of cutting the ends of the fiber optic cables in a slant way.  I cut the fiber optic cables at 45 degree angle and glued them together with the help of hot glue gun. Then I placed the fiber optic cables on the LED and it gave the proper effect that I wanted for my party mask.

Making this artefact was not difficult as I did not had to make mask on my own am also I was aware of making the circuit.

Reflection on Artefact 3

While working on this artefact, I practiced again the stitching techniques that I learned before. I used running stitch as well as blanket stitch techniques for stitching the glove. Also I used the bondaweb (which I learned about while researching about conductive materials) to stick felt to the fabric.

The most difficult part while making glove was to cut the net and the stretchy fabric according to the layout. I also learned that netting is not suitable for stitching circuits as it does not holds the thread tightly and also it is not strong enough to hold the components. I didn’t had any problems while using felt instead of net.

I think I was successful enough to achieve my motive behind making this glove. I recorded the traces while moving my hand in a dark room. I believe this glove will be useful to provide high visibility for a jogger or cyclist at night.

Reflection on Artefact 2

While working on my second artefact, I have learned about a new component of Arduino Lilypad i.e. LilyTiny. This tiny computer has been programmed in such a way that LEDs attached to each of its tabs behave differently. It has eliminated my one step i.e. coding and has made my work easier.

But using this microcontroller was not that easy as I thought it would be. It became difficult for me to make right connections between all the components when my first connection didn’t work. As I knew that I have to connect all the (+) side of the LEDs to the numbered tabs of LilyTiny i.e. 0.1.2 or 3 and (-) tabs of LEDs to (-) tab of LilyTiny and (+) and (-) tabs of batter holder to (+) and (-) tabs of LilyTiny, so I made these connections but my circuit didn’t work. I checked each of my connection and everything seemed to be right. After researching more about LilyTiny I figured out that I forgot to made connection between the LEDs and the battery holder because of which my circuit was not working.

This time I also modified the size of the bracelet on basis of the feedback I got for my artefact 1. I reduced the width of the bracelet to make it slim.

Making this artefact was not that challenging as I didn’t had to do coding to make the LEDs blink. The major part was to understand the LilyTiny. I believe I have learned more about circuits and the proper connections required making circuit work while working on this artefact.

Reflection on Artefact 1

I finally created a simple LED bracelet by editing the first one that I started with. So far I am done with my first basic artefact. I would like to take this bracelet to next the level by making it blink by doing some modifications.

As this was my first artefact, I faced a lot of problems with conductive materials. So I decided to learn more about these materials before making the final artefact. I researched more about different types of conductive materials and the ways of using them. The most challenging part was to find the right materials for my artefact. I tried to work with two different types of conductive fabrics, out of which, the first fabric i.e. hemp was not good enough for stitching due to its low thread count as it has gaps in between threads which made it very difficult to get a tight stitch for the circuit. I also had difficulty using the conductive thread as it’s somewhat hairy and is not suitable for close connections made using sewing machine as it potentially short across small distances.

So far, I think I have learned a lot about conductive materials and the ways to use them. I think I have somehow achieved my first task and I am ready to do some modifications in it so that I could take it to the next higher level. For this I think I would have to do some coding to make the bracelet blink in different ways.