Over the past few days, I have been working on 3d designing a moving axel for our project. This will connect to two axels, one coming from the base pot, and one coming from the moving object (to be decided). Included are pictures of the 3d cad.

Past 2 weeks I have been working on a Oscilloscope. I took a old proton television, and explored the insides. What it does is shoot a stream of protons directly at the center of the screen. When it does, there will be a small dot at the center of the screen. The screen has some powder in it that stays illuminated with that color/light for a few milliseconds. There are two electromagnets on the side of the beam of protons that change the direction of the protons, one electromagnet for side to side, and one for up and down. the up and down is carefully timed to change the Y position of the line every time the side to side finishes a cycle. What we are doing for this project is hijacking the up and down electromagnet and putting different voltage that corresponds with music through it. We do this by taking a AUX cable and connecting the right signal and ground and close the electromagnet circuit with those two, basically creating a speaker that affects light instead of sound.

I looked at some indestructible including the main help here. All I needed from this was the concept and then I understood what it does from there.

Two Standards I met would be Test, because the TV we used was very different than the ones in the instructions, and we had to completely redesign the project. The other standard I met would be Explore, I designed experiments to see how to make this oscilloscope work, this included the main test of unhooking all the electromagnets, and turning it on, and then sticking a neodymium magnet on the side of the box and watching the point move. This was influential in seeing how the TV worked.

Today I started my vinel: I designed It and cut it out. I only need to put it on my binder next class. I also have a new plan for the laser cutter. I will put the CNC’d piece of wood into the laser cutter and engrave a crisscross padern, and vector cut a circle for a really cool spinning effect.

Today I fixed the switch issue. I did this by bypassing the switch with some wires I stole from a LED. This fixed the entire issue, and it is working now. The next thing I did is design the carve for the CNC machine. All I need to do is start the carve with the piece of wood I chose.

Today I finally finished the whole soldering project, I finished it withing the first 20 minutes. And of course it didn’t work. After that, was testing to see what was wrong. I started with hooking it up to 5 volts of electricity. Over the next 35 minutes, I troubleshooted why it wouldn’t work. Over this time I found out the lights weren’t broken, the switch was the issue, and it works off of 6 volts too. This is important because I can use 4 AA batteries instead of a odd 5 volt power source. I am not sure what to do about the switch, but I will make it work. Attached is where the issue is, circled in black.

So far this year, I have designed 2 projects to complete all of the necessary maker qualifications. I have started on one of them; mostly finishing the first half (soldering). I am excited for finishing the whole project. Next I am going to finish soldering which should take half of next class, and then start designing my wooden casing around the soldering section.

This year so far, I have soldered more than I have in years. I am definitely better at soldering now than ever before. The only thing that went wrong was when the solder jumped and landed in another hole, thereby covering it until I can clear it. This happened twice and set me back about half of a class.

After I finish this project, I will start on my second project with my engineering notebook. I am looking forward to the textiles part of my second project because I have not done much with textiles, and I have never used the sewing machine. This year, the two most prominent standards I have demonstrated are planing and making. I have planned out two projects that will be completed in the near future, and I have already made almost half of a project in the past days. Today’s picture is of the mostly finished soldering project.

Today was frustrating. The IC boards were note friendly. I got some of the solder to close a hole I need for the IC board, and I spent 10 minutes clearing the hole. I got one IC board in, and then closed another hole with solder. That is where I left the project last.

Today I finally finished all of the resistors, including the variable resistor. I have also installed the main power switch and all the capasators. Next I will solder the IC board and finally the lights. I am over half way done with the soldering.

Today was a very productive day, I got over halfway done with soldering the resistors. Once I finish them, I will start on soldering the IC boards.

Today I started to solder the hour glass, I got some resistor soldered in, but I am just starting.