Final Blog Post

Julia and I had a really fun time working on our transition clock. Although it got frustrating at times, it felt so rewarding to create something that served a purpose and actually worked!

Project Description

Our transition clock would benefit the Child Study Center by:

• Providing more structure to transitions between groups and activities throughout the day
• Teaching children to transition more efficiently at a young age
• Allowing more time and productivity in groups and activities

To address these goals, we have created this clock-like structure, made out of plywood. When an activity is taking place, the LEDs around the picture that corresponds to that activity are lit up. After the button in pressed, the LEDs around the activity blink to warn the children that the current activity is ending soon. Next, the arrow lights up and the clock “hand” rotates until it is pointing to the next activity, moving so that it arrives as the transition period is ending. When the transition period is over, the LEDs around the next activity light up.

In order to allow the teacher to adjust the amount of time for the warning and transition period, we included two dials, which consist of potentiometers whose positions are read by an arduino and converted into time.

IMG_4650.MOV-1sgq8mk

Above is a video of our clock going through the cycles

Above is the front image of our clock and its side panel

Above is the uncovered back of our clock, displaying the wires and Arduino

Weekly Highlights

Week 1: This week, after some brainstorming, we got a good idea of what we wanted our product to look like and what materials we wanted to use. We also had a good conceptualization of what the coding might entail, in terms of the servo and LEDs.

Week 2: Julia and I changed the structural design of our project to have an arrow on the inside of the circle instead of the circle rotating behind the clock face. We also decided to change part of the coding to have a warning signal before going into the transition period. We created a rough prototype out of foam core, then used solid works to create a more symmetrical and accurate prototype, including the squares where the pictures would be, the lights, the clock hand, and the hole for the servo (all to scale).

Week 3: This week, we got into the assembly of the clock. We laser cut the face out of wood, glued on LED strips and began soldering all of the wires together. We finalized most of the coding for the project as well, connecting the Arduino to the buttons, potentiometers and servo.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I had a really amazing time coming up with this final project. I think it could easily serve its purpose in the classroom even though it isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing. We used so many different concepts that we covered in class and it was great to be able to combine them and put them all together to create one big thing.

If we had more time to keep working on this project, I would try to fix the LED lights that decided not to work. I would also try to find  way to make it look cleaner and more put together, probably by not exposing the whole LED strips. A final idea Julia and I had and Professor Gleason brought up was the ability to change around the activities by velcro-ing them on rather than gluing. I think that could be an interesting idea to implement should anyone decide to re-explore the idea of a transition clock.