So nice to look at… why?

The physical model is now complete and ready to hold all components necessary. I added some pulsing LED’s to backlight the meters and demonstrate an effect although it is missing the IR sensor and vibration motors, which will be added for the final show. We were only required to create a block model for our submission but I wanted to take it a few steps further to the massive detriment of my body’s sleep requirements, averaging about 4 hours sleep from Tuesday through to Saturday and then topping that slog off with an all-nighter on Sunday.

The portfolio has been put together (with minutes to spare and no time for finishing touches) and the whole thing now lies in a crate at Central Saint Martins ready to be presented on Thursday. Phew.

I could have used an extra day but there is a lesson to be learned here: concentrate on achieving the project deliverables rather than chasing a passion for one area of the project. Go back and add more only after the core deliverables have been achieved.

I wont set the context in this post as I think the project deserves a proper portfolio update to reveal the story behind it, but here are some evaluative pages from the project portfolio.

Testing the servo movement of my model. I will make the shell tomorrow and if I have time may back light the meters. This was supposed to be just an appearance model but I was eager to get it going so I wont feel too bad if all the features cannot be implemented yet. Now comes the graft of collating research, idea generation and design development together, and communicating the concept… I may back light the meters if I have time.

Got the pieces for the chassis laser cut and part assembled. Despite the no-drilling assembly so far, I still have some fiddly holes to drill with very tight tolerances (can’t believe how small I made this thing!) so although I am excited to see something materialise from a 3D CAD model, I press on with trepidation.

Love these tiny machine screws.