Initial Pitch:
After visiting the Child Study Center, I was intrigued by many of the projects, but was initially interested in tackling the problem around hand washing. The problem the CSC is facing is that kids do not wash their hands for a long enough period of time before transitioning to snack time. Not thoroughly washing their hands before eating could lead to illness and if the behavior is not corrected at this age, bad habits could continue later in life.
My idea was to create a Delrin box with a series of pictures representing the process of hand washing. Each picture would be accompanied by a series of LED lights that would light up as time passed until that step is over and the next one is supposed to begin. The last LED to light up would be green (as opposed to the others which would be red), and when the first LED of the next step lights up, all the other LEDs would shut off.
This process would begin after a sensing device sensed that the water was turned on. I was unsure what device would be best to sense this action, but had considered a noise sensor to detect the frequency of the water hitting the sink, or a water level sensor to detect when there was water in the bottom of the sink.
After seeing the other final project proposals in class, I was interested in many, and was ultimately assigned to work on the “transition poster” with Kelsey.
Final Project:
When Kelsey and I began working on the “transition poster,” she already had a few different ideas involving different LEDs lighting up to indicated what activity was taking place at that time. One idea was to have many LEDs for each activity that would light up as time went on and the row would “fill up” when that activity was done and the next one was supposed to begin. One issue we considered was that the amount of time for each activity was not consistent day to day, so we would need an easy way for the teacher to change the amount of time allotted for each row of LEDs to fully light up.
We also discussed having either transition times have their own rows or having the two activities that were being transitioned between light up simultaneously while transitions were happening. Our discussion about the transition times, as well as the difficulty of the varying time frame for the activities led us to focus more on the transition period.
After throwing around many different ideas, we settled on a “Transition Clock” that would tell the kids what activity they were currently doing, what activity was next, and during transition times, give them a set amount of time that would encourage them to transition efficiently to the next activity. On our “clock” we plan to have a picture representing each activity surrounded by LED lights that will be lit up when that activity is taking place. There will also be LEDs in the shape of an arrow that will point from one activity to the next. During the transition time, the LEDs around the picture will turn off and the arrow LEDs will turn on. After a set amount of time, the LEDs will begin to blink, indicating that the transition period is almost over. At the end of the transition period, the LEDs around the next activity will light up.
Accompanying the lights, we also plan to have a circle that moves around the “clock” throughout the day. When an activity is taking place, the circle will by stationary next to that activity. During transition periods, it will slowly move from one activity to the next, arriving at the next activity when the transition period is over.
The lighting up of the arrow LEDs and moving of the circle will begin simultaneously when the teacher presses a button. After the button is initially pressed, it will automatically go through the transitional period and stop at the next activity, requiring no additional action from the teacher.
We plan to use 1/8th” Delrin to make the main circular structure (cutting holes where the LEDs will be), the rotating circle, and the rod to connect the two together. For the pictures, we are planning to laminate them and attach them directly to the Delrin structure. We will need many LEDs to encircle the pictures and create the arrows. We will also need a device similar to a servo in order to allow the rotating of the circle to be coded. To code the movement of the circle and the LEDs, we will need an Arduino attached to a battery pack as well as the wires and breadboards necessary to build the circuits.
The coding, building of the circuits, and building of the physical structure will take some trial and error, but until we begin the process it is difficult to take into account all the issues we will run into. Over the next week, Kelsey and I need to finalize the list of materials we need to order. We should also begin to build a prototype. I look forward to beginning this process.
