final review

Project description

When my partner and I set out on our project we aimed to help the child studies center keep track of which toys were available in their crowded closet.  Their current system has a list of all of toys that were in each shelf of the closet.  This cuts down search time if a person decides to search in the closet, but it does not indicate whether a closet search was even going to be fruitful.  

Our project has two parts, an array of toggles to indicate, mechanically, whether a toy is available or not, and a led strip that lights up when the toy cabinet door was open so that they remember to use the toggle array, because the toggle array is useful only when people actually use it. 

some highlights of our project:

I designed and constructed a fully functional sample toggle

when I tested and modified the toggle 

and when I successfully designed and constructed the whole toggle array.  

When Nanaki constructed a working LED light array,

when she lit up the LED light strip 

and when we integrated the pieces. 

Impressions and Improvements:

If I were to improve on this more, I would increase the margins of the piece, so that there was more material between the outside joints and the edge of the whole array for the front and consequently the back.  I think that would cut down on the chipping.

If I were serious about producing this I would seriously consider building and constructing the whole thing out of something that isn't delrin, acetal.  As my professor pointed out,   Delrin, or acetal, is very expensive.

I would also look into if I could further decrease the size of each window unit so that I can fit more windows into the array.   

I would also like to investigate the light strip, and create some cool patterns on the light strip, like demonstrated in some online videos.   I know it's possible, but I haven't seen Nanaki do it, so I would like to see if I can get it to work using the Matlab code.