Final Presentation and Images
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Most of the extra supplies such as needle nose pliers, buttons, velcro, needles, spools and secures were bought at the Dollar Store at Surrey central. Credits to them and note to self to check for anything before purchasing at hardware stores or specialty stores for a high price.
Some parts that really affected the quality and the progress of the neck brace was the fact that we used conductive thread for all the connections. The problem is that conductive thread has high resistancey so by the time they reach the vibe boards, there is no current at all. As well, sewing was time consuming. Realizing at 8 morning that the whole circuit has to be resewn was very discouraging. I tried doubling up the thread and weave through the circuit that was already there to decrease the resistance, however it remained relatively the same and made no difference at all. Desperate to find wire to replace the soft circuit, I had an old pc desktop computer from another Siat project and took it apart to see what I could salvage. To my surprise, the cables that connected the old motherboard to other component were made of fairly strong yet thin wire strands. I stripped them and surprisingly they worked well even just weaving through the original conductive thread circuit. The big problem is that I had used too many layers of wire and parts of them were beginning to fray form being handled too much. When I tested the sensors and vibe boards individually, they worked fine, however it could be circuit bridges and shorts that caused the arduino to have unreliable readings from the sensors.
Sewing on jumper wires in their correct location was a very difficult task. Somehow, each wire took aroun 20 minutes to sew on, but I gained speed near the end and it lost some quality there.
Another part is that the velcro removable IR proximity sensors were an afterthought in that I had already sewn two sensors down, but found that it got in the way of other components as well as was facing the wrong direction and area. So at 10 in the morning, I decided to remove them and completely reconfigure it. The result was removable sensors with a fairly easy set up to connect to the arduino. One could configure the sensors in multiple ways; so that they face front, back, left and right or rotate them vertically so that the proximitors detect more vertically than horizontally. Since this was an experimental piece, one could easily change the sensors to something else and use the neck strap as a started kit to wearable experiments. Due to time constraint, I did not end up making nice button on connections.
About experience, while in the early stages of the project, I allowed my sister and mother to try the strap and to get their feedback on the vibe board’s effect to them. The set up only had one working vibe board and one proximity sensor. They understood the location and what the buzzer meant when they walked around the room for a while. It was not as obvious as waving our hand in front of the IR proximitor sensor. They thought that the vibe board was more massaging than shocking. Due to the time constraint, I ended up still using the vibe boards because there was no other way. I tried moving the vibe board to different areas on the neck and the more sensitive area I found was the part where my throat and adams apple is. It was not comfortable however. We chose to then move the vibe boards to either sides of of throat which was called the anterior cervical area. It was still sensitive as there was probably less fat there.
While testing the neck strap with the wiring on the inside, sometimes there was slight discomfort of the pointy bits of the components. I realized later that it was simply some wires sticking out, so I trimmed them down. What I found about the qualities of the vibe boards while testing them were that if they were more loose, their vibration had more displacement, it was louder and it actually moves side to side. Putting this to the neck sometimes gave a heated sensation or a burning feeling that happens if a circuit is shorted or the power is too high.
This project to me was interesting because it was not trying to solve a problem or use something to intentionally trigger something else, it was more a science experiment. I enjoy more exploratory research than simply making a semi artificial intelligent system. Though I wished the whole system worked perfectly, it did not, due to circuit jumps and breaks, but it gave me ideas on how to improve next time around. I should avoid sewing too closely with conductive thread or wire because shorts are easily resulted in. Second I could attach LEDs with the vibeboard to signal which vibe board is actually activated since when one vibrates, the entire item shakes and is hard to tell. It would also be interesting to see LEDs light up on others and see how they would respond to the vibe actuator signals.
The coming posts will be about Final Project Ideas, so check back.
Here are some progress photos:
