This week in class (DATT 3700), we started putting together the acrylic structure of the tree. Professor Longford, got us some washers and most importantly, he helped us cut parts of the acrylic tube, acrylic rod as well as drill holes for all the wiring to pass through the acrylic tube. We did not want the acrylic rod to be too long, since it would be too heavy for the structure and cause it to tilt to a side and hit someone on the head as the rod is 6ft. Therefore, we had a few inches cut off the rod and a portion of it would be attached to the scaled version of the tree. We planned where we wanted the hardware to be placed within and into both of the trees. For example, we plan on zip tying the Arduino to the side of the tree, where we drilled the hole. The RFID tag would also be zip tied to the front of the tree since it already has holes through it. The flower neopixel would be attached on the bottom of the acrylic rod, for the light effect. We are still trying to decipher how to attach the neopixel inside securely, that is something we will have to figure out once we solder the prototype. We placed a small part of the acrylic tube that had been cut through the acrylic rod, we added several metal and rubber washers at the top of the rod to keep it more firm. We still have to add more for firmness, we may have to 3D print some or just simply buy some more washers. A rubber washer was then added to bottom part of the rod. Since the rubber washer at the bottom is flexible, it was easy for the rod to fit into the tube, as well as strong enough to hold the rod into place. We are using a stand that is used for the Bounty paper rolls to hold our structure in place. For the final we will 3D print a much more firm structure. We also had to re-solder the flower neopixel so that it would be able to fit inside the tube.
We are currently still working on the RFID tag, transmitter and receiver and the servo motors. So far we have the flower neopixel and the neopixel strip working well with the RFID tag. But there are few hiccups along the way using the transmitter and receiver, since we realized that they are not compatible with the Servo.h library. Hence we found another library called ServoTimer2.h, which we found out would be compatible through extensive research. Additionally, the neopixels are automatically turning off at a certain time as we have programmed it and the RFID tag activates the multicolour also as we have planned. However, the servo is still a bit of a struggle as it still won't return to 0 when we active the RFID stag with a tap, it only works automatically. Therefore, we are still trying to find a solution to solve that issue.
Vanessa has also started designing the 3D model "leg" for the servo. And with Virginia they have also started 3D printing it to move the q-tip tube on the small scaled tree. These are some of the phase that have been 3D printed. The 3rd printed structure had to be printed over four times due to cracks forming in the structure. As a result, the solution was to glue gun the cracked areas as we did not find the reasons of the crack and did not want to waste more time and material on testing.
How the ideas have evolved
Pictures of our Acrylic Structure so far
