About Taofik Sulaiman

Sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in Electrical Engineering. From Lagos, Nigeria.

A Semester into Digital Making

What were my Expectations?

I heard about this class through a professor of mine that saw my passion for making things. He knew that I was looking for a means to do that and wanted me to explore this passion so he pointed towards Vischal’s BADM 395: Digital Making Seminar. From what I heard about the class, I had great expectations on learning solely the technical skills listed on the brochure such as 3D printing, laser cutting, digital embroidery, and using Arduinos. I came focused and expecting the individual aspect of making but got so much more from this class. These all changed throughout the semester. I learned and gained insight beyond this.

What did I learn?

Maker Movement and “3D Printing Revolution” 

We were first taught about the maker community on and around campus, many applications and potential for 3D printing in our futures, daily lives and industries as well as education through the utilization of 3D printing in maker spaces for classes. This instilled the collaboration aspect of open source platforms and projects such as thingiverse.com

Design Thinking

We then went into more hands on things such as going From Design Process to Design Thinking. Starting off with perceiving and questioning the consumers’ world/perspective. After which we worked on an idea, sketch, a model prototype out of arts and craft material available. We came up with so many questions and scenarios for the consumers. The deign thinking process first pushes you to identify a problem or need. Then immersing my self, empathetically, relating to the world of the consumer encountering that problem or need, reframing the problem to avoid assumptions, coming up with an idea from the perspective of the consumer – this is where the human centered focus is crucial, then building the idea to those constraints and finally testing as in any product development cycle. Target specific problems and consumer responses to products as well as identifying new market potentials as in the examples given in Tim Brown’s articles. This also included the What/SoWhat/NowWhat template, a brainstorming method that can help ideators immerse themselves in the problem/situation to be able to empathize with the user and then come up with a solution – the missing piece. This template allows people to have a structured way of being creative, innovative and problem solving. It gives a broadly scoped problem a structure, a frame and a regularities

Computer Aided Drawing

We delved into another tool that you can use to create and make innovative products and how powerful and unique this software is and different ways of designing with the help of computer software. Throughout the class we learnt how to use several software and different methods of Computer Aided Drawing to be able to 3D print at the end of the CAD process. We got to learn about AutoDesk, TinkerCAD and Fusion360 as well as Cura.

3D Scanning

we were introduced to the idea of bringing physical/tangible product into their digital/cad model form. Kind of like the opposite of 3D printing where you already have the digital and turn that into something tangible. The way these work is that, the scanner/camera takes pictures and combines them together as meshes, it is then uploaded through software like MeshMixer to be able to turn into a 3D cad model. Its application include reverse engineering, duplicating, utilizing the interacts

Prototyping

This was by far one of my favorite parts of the class because it taught me the very skills I was looking to learn from this class to get trained on and work with the many great tools and resources there ranging from 3D printing, to digital embroidery and every thing in between such as the biohacking space and laser cutter.. We were introduced into the world of maker spaces through the CUC Fablab. We started off with learning how to make circuits and soldering, then led into coding arduinos in conjuction with the circuits and ended off with learning about laser cutting/engraving using inkscape to provide housing for the electronics. After this series, my technical skills were far above what I had come in with and my mind opened up to much more potential. After that we had these skills and were familiar with these resources to apply them to our own group projects due at the end of the semester. At the end of this series we created the Light box which was a culmination of hardware and software. We were then challenged to think of ways of using these tools to create and make changes to things already available. This taught me the implication of having so simple do something so complex if you used imagination for your needs.

Final project, team Xerott and the Makerlab Bot

At the end of the semester it all came down to how could we use all we learned to solve a problem by creating a product to address that user need and that is what we did. That is what drove me and team xerott to create the approachable Maker Lab bot that records people’s ideas and stories or any feedback they have for the lab. The bot will also have the ability to sense when someone gets close to greet the person. The video/audio recorded by the Maker Lab bot will be saved to an SD card/USB which could help in keeping a record of the things that are going on in the lab as well as collecting data for future use. This will help create interactivity within the lab and help with sharing what goes on in the lab to the world. We combined most of the things we learned in class to create this such as 3D printing, coding and electronics, Laser cutting and so on through various iteration, testing and feedback/auditing sessions. Since the beginning of the project I have learned more about our product and what is needed to complete the minimum viable product and have since then been stream-lining what features it will need as well as how I will go about doing that

Individual Research

We were also each challenged to cover a topic of interest that we believed was worth sharing and worth learning. I decided to talk about Where 3D Printing Meets Opensource Electronics where I discussed the power behind merging technologies of electronics and 3D printing to create amazing products that impact consumers, the industry and future/potential technologies such as 3D printing electronics already embedded in the product.

Take Aways

In the end I greatly enjoyed this class, it was a pleasure learning from everyone else in this class and all the stakeholders in this experience. I finally found the technical skills that I sought and more with the community and outlet that is the Makermovement and I look forward to keep working with the Makerlab and Fab lab in bringing out my inner maker as well as creating products that will impact many users. I have been opened up to many more possibilities and how to share my ideas with the world.

 

Below are videos to my final project. Feel free to reach out to me for any questions regarding it or my great experience in this class.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1fEmDfFtC3pVGZtRFZYODdGQkE/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwfM-5nVQPFieEUzOGlna0w4YzQ/view?usp=sharing

Design Auditing

This week has been yet another week of great progress. Since the beginning of the project I have learned more about our product and what is needed to complete the minimum viable product and have since then been stream-lining what features it will need as well as how I will go about doing that. The design auditing process did great work in helping me see some of the ways I can do this as well as give me a few ideas on how to execute the final product iteration. And this final iteration is coming along very well as the last thing to get the fully functioning prototype is the speakers and microphone. I wrote code and setup the electronic circuits to control the led, button, camera and the LCD display and be able to already record the stories (with video without audio). I also got a lot of insight into the JJJ Inc. team who also did a design audit for us as well. They were working on the smart light switch, I found their project interesting and saw they had a different approach to their project. My main take away from the design auditing process was to strive for a minimum viable product given the short timeline we have and to learn as much as we can while working on our projects. We should have our finished product before next monday and that thought excites me greatly. I look forward to seeing everyone’s final products.
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Final Project Progress

This week was a good week where Team Xerott got hands on and made alot of progress towards our final project which is the Makerlab bot. We moved from just having a card board version last week to lasercutting the outer part thanks to my teammates Odelia and Tiffany. They used inkscape for designing the lasercut pieces to include the electronics in it.  Since this is our 2nd prototype, we used the laser cutting machine to create the two boxes (essentially these two boxes will become the body and head). The body was 120mm by 150mm by 120mm while the head was 135mm by 150mm by 120mm.Within the body, we engraved a heart, with a hole in the middle that was for the camera, and a cut out a square so that the user can see the LED display. The head has two eyes for the ultrasonic transducer (possibly, still debating if we have enough time for it) as well as holes on the side of its head for the speakers.IMG_0243
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From there I was able to make progress on my part which is coding and putting together the electronic parts and Raspberry Pi. With the help of the Fablab, I was able to write code in Python on the raspberry pi operating system to activate the camera module that I got to work last week and allow a button to control this feature as well as an LED light to show that it is working. I have been working on getting it to interface with the LCD screen to display messages a s well in a form of subtitle for the bot. In the next couple week, we will need to know the specific measurements of every piece we have and finish are list of wanted utilities.
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3d Scanning & Prototyping

This week in class, we able to be introduced to the idea of bringing physical/tangible product into their digital/cad model form. Kind of like the opposite of 3D printing where you already have the digital and turn that into something tangible. This concept being called 3D Scanning. Arielle Rausin came back this time around to teach us different ways of doing this and their applications. My team was not able to participate in making our own 3d scan but there was a limited to the number of scanners.

The way these work is that, athe scanner/camera takes pictures and combines them together as meshes, it is then uploaded through software like MeshMixer to be able to turn into a 3D cad model. Its      application include reverse engineering, duplicating, utilizing the interacts

To learn more about 3D scanning, click HERE.

This week in class we were able to continue working on our semester project.We were able to assemble the protoype for the fist prototype. then make a sample outer case to the the internal frames dimensions. Afer which we put the raspberry Pi components together and I fianlly got the camera to work this time around. Shown in pictures velow this. IMG_0134
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Where 3D Printing Meets Opensource Electronics

<spaOur world is changing rapidly with the Maker Movement setting its roots into modern society today. People are becoming more inclined to build and make their own personalized products rather than the general off the factory line model of the products that they seek. For instance, why buy a paper weight when you could 3D print your personalized model quicker and cheaper? But the same thing can be said about open source electronic projects such as using Arduinos and Raspberry Pis (Microcontrollers and Microprocessors). People are becoming bored with the fixed flow of technology development that they are creating their own electronic projects and devices. We came across a great example of this from the time that Mike Bohlman came in and told us about his endeavors in making. He had come across a space-based board game but became bored with it and created his very ow nmore interesting and interactive version included using electronics to make the board spots blink. You can find this project on his website called the Star Wars Armada Correllian Conflict. But the key way he did this was by providing the functionality using arduinos and presenting it in housing using 3D printing and supplies. This is also the trend when creating a product where Arduinos are used to add functionality, features, automated processes, interactiveness. While 3D printing is used to provide structure, casing/housing, internal frame to hold up components, physical hold/grip for user, fitting the electronics to the specific use size and shape wise, outer appearance and so on. These all tie in and make products what they are. These all blend into where 3D printing meets arduinos and micro controller. Highlighting this and allowing you to see this is the goal of this post. The most common application of these is the use of them to create DIY bots, droids, automated machines or parts and so on.

This has caught the attention of large companies where they see the potential for 3D printing for low cost production. Especially in areas for consumer products where there is huge reliance on these two prototyping methods, and they use these added effects/uses for these prototyping methods to have specific effects on users to create a new experience or to have a certain feel.

This cross between 3D printing and electronics is very feasible and has sparked the concept of 3D printing electronics already embedded in the product. Which would in turn, cut down manufacturing time of products that possess both components. This would be the most effective in creating whole electronic products at once. And this might be able to revolutionize the world and allow people to 3d print whole products from their home. More info can be found here. This article explains the power of combining 3D printed parts and electronics and the way the world is moving to combine them into 3D printable electronics.

Final Project: Prototyping The MakerLab Bot (Team Xerott)

This session in class was one of the most productive where we got to start rapid prototyping our project.

Team Xerott will create a the approachable Maker Lab bot that records people’s ideas and stories or any feedback they have for the lab. The bot will also have the ability to sense when someone gets close to greet the person. The video/audio recorded by the Maker Lab bot will be saved to an SD card/USB which could help in keeping a record of the things that are going on in the lab as well as collecting data for future use. This will help create interactivity within the lab and help with sharing what goes on in the lab to the world.

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Concept art for MakerLab Bot

We obtained most of the parts needed to setup the Raspberry components included in the pictures below. And 3D printed the internal parts of the bot that will hold these components up.

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Components to setup the Raspberry Pi

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3D Printed internal frame

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Raspberry Pi Components

Key components of the initial solution:

-raspberry pi 3 board: to run the code

-jumper cables: to connect components

-mini (USB) microphone: to record audio and take in user commands
-camera module: to record the video
-speakers: to play tones, commands, and responses
-ultrasonic transducer: to sense the distance to the user to determine when to activate
-laser cut inner frame (Wood or Cardboard): to hold up the internal components mentioned above.
-3D printed outer frame/attachments: to house the internal components and add aesthetic appeal (cute factor)

-LCD Display: to display image/message and possibly the recorded videos.

-Wheels and servo motors: If we get the project done ahead of time we will add this to make the droid mobile.

Our next step will be to start on the laser cutting of the outside portion of the bot as well as the coding which might be the most difficult part. But we will have the help of Youtube tutorials and the FabLab.  Looking forward to much progress next week.

Link to BlabDroid: http://blabdroid.com/ (Links to an external site.)

Link to Vishal’s demo: https://ibmtjbot.github.io (Links to an external site.)

 (Links to an external site.)

Link to hour long YouTube tutorial video we found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8gc7eGTtaw (Links to an external site.)

The Hands-on Intro to Digital Making. Part 3: Coding & Prototyping Arduino.

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CU FabLab. Located at 1301 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana IL.

This week was the last week of the CUC Fablab series and probably my personal favourite part of the class. I was starting to become very comfortable in this innovative maker space. Now, I was back to working with arduinos but less on the hardware side and more on the software side. This session was geared towards understanding what you are doing with the arduino better. We started off by learning that you could use arduinos in conjunction with a breadboard for more temporary setups instead of the more permanent way of soldering that I learned two weeks prior. I believe that most experts use this method which is very useful for prototyping and troubleshooting first builds before soldering their finalized versions. This taught a great lesson on prototyping to ensure feasibility.

But that was my major takeaway from this session. After becoming familiar with the breadboard and its internal setup for connecting electronic components, we  went further in learning how to setup the arduino board with the bread board and connect components by either plugging them directly into the breadboard or using jumper cables to access specific ports of thearduino board. I learnt that to use the arduino, you had to have a general understanding of each component that you would want to connect as well as the the different parts of the arduino itself.

What is the arduino? Well, it is a small open source micro-controller hardware board that makes it easy to create circuits and hardware with various functions. It has many different parts of it for hardware and a small chip that acts as the brain and takes in code using the Arduino IDE (Integrate Developer Environment). The Arduino IDE is where you create your code and upload it to the board. As beginners we were introduced to the concept of using sample code as templates and modifying them to our specific task. For this we needed to learn how to understand the IDE and the code. After learing all these, we got to create a circuit that caused an LED Light to blink at a set interval/rate shown below.

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We were then challenged to mess around with the code to cause the LED light to use Morse code to signal SOS by changing the speed and rate of the blinking. This taught me the implication of having so simple do something so complex if you used imagination to alter code to your needs. Other things that I was able to do were having two LEDs blink back and forth, I had it two different leds blink blue and red to emulate police lights.

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My Assembled Final Product of the UltraLight Box

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LED Light Blinking at different speeds

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Alternating Blinking Blue and Red LED lights (Police Lights)

I have learned a lot from my time at the CUC Fablab. From this entire CUC Fablab experience, i have learned the impact of makerspaces in different communities as well as the potential for great products and ideas. I got to learn more about Arduinos which was a primary reason for taking this class. I will use what I have learned to work on our semester project and will use more tutorials such as Sparkfun’s online website and tutorials and Youtube. I liked using the past three weeks learing how to use laser cutters, write Arduino code and bring them all together. And I suggest everyone gets involved in the fablab nearest to their communities. Here’s links to learn more about Fablabs and where to find the nearest one. Link 1. Link 2.

 

The Hands-on Intro to Digital Making. Part 2: Laser/Vinyl Cutting 7 Inkscape

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CU FabLab. Located at 1301 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana IL.

This week we got to return to my favorite part of the class for the second part of our three-part FabLab series. I got to immerse myself more in the hands on part of making. This time around I was more familiar and comfortable in the CUC FabLab space but I wasnt working with arduinos or electronics this time around. We were at first just shown the sample lasercut box and given back our kits below.
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At first, I was a little hesitant because I had thought that we would have to do the measurements by hand or use some form of Computer-aided drawing (CAD) but after listening to their explanation on the process of Laser/Vinyl cutting and engraving, I became more relaxed and interested in learning the tool they mentioned. Instead of using 3D CAD for prototyping like the usual, we used a graphics package called Inkscape to design the outline of each face as well as the graphics that we would engrave on the faces. Here we learned that the laser cutter performed two functions: Vector cutting which is when the laser cuts entirely through the wood or material and creates a blackened outline from the burn of the laser and the Engraving which is when the laser does not cut through the wood but etches a silhouette we created on Inkscape onto the wood in a darker unburnt shade. So essentially, laser cutting is a form of subtractive manufacturing where they take a flat piece of material and cut out shapes to be assembled into a hollow structure or skeleton of a solid object.

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Lasercutter vector cutting the outline through the wood

Before any of this we had to create the outline/shape on inkscape. There we learnt some of the basics of Inkscape and how to navigate the environment to use the tools available. We used a website to create the box press fit outline as it was much ore convenient and efficient than manually sketching it out. By putting the dimensions of the box in the website, we were able to adjust the settings to create our press fit box in a matter of minutes.  We imported pictures from the internet, and used tools to create our own shapes combining them into cool graphics to be engraved. Some of us even went further to create complex graphics such as the mythical creature I made which is a black panther with dragon wings as well as the “Illini light bulb” that I made which is a pun for the purpose of the lightbox we are making. But to convert these images and outlines, we had to create the Bitmap paths to turn them into silhouettes that the laser cutter could understand. By doing all these, I learnt how powerful graphics are in making designs and products more attractive and personal.The thing about the lasercutter environment below, is that it only recognizes specific colours: black as engrave space, red for vector cut path and white as material.

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The Lasercutter Final Print Environment

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My Final assembled press fit box. View 1

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My Final assembled press fit box. View 2

The cool thing about laser cutting is that not only is it fast and material efficient, it can be used on many other materials. the most common is wood and glass/vinyl but you can also laser cut metals, paper, foam, cork, silicone and so on. You can learn so much more here at this link. The Stanford Product Realization Lab is making great products there and exploring much more materials. But the most impressive thing to me is the innovative use of lasercut patterns to make flat materials curved or bendable. They way they do this is by laser cutting thin lines and holes in the area that is desired to be flexible in such a way that there would be more freedom for that section to be less rigid and be able to stretch and hence be flexible.

Now with all this the final outcome for our lightbox should look like the sample below. I am looking forward to being able to incorporate this into our project this semester.

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Sample final product for the lightbox.

 

The Hands-on Intro to Digital Making. Part 1: Circuits and Soldering.

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CU FabLab. Located at 1301 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana IL.

This week was definitely my favorite class session, because I am a person who loves getting work done physically and having a physical product in my hands. After hearing Jeff Ginger – the director of CUC FabLab – tell us about the lab in week 2, he gave us a great tour through the space where we got to go in as part of a series to get trained on and work with the many great tools and resources there ranging from 3D printing, to digital embroidery and every thing in between such as the biohacking space and laser cutter. It was also interesting learning how it all tied in with a Fablab movement/Network of FabLabs across the globe. Seeing the place in person was definitely more inspiring as they turned a place that could be considered run-down into an environment where ideas and creativity are not just born but brought to life. Its very astonishing how much is possible and available through the lab, they had a section for each of the above mentioned and set up classes to teach each of these concepts.

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Different facets of the FabLab.

After the tour we, were split up into groups to partake in these classes to dive into one of these facets. I started with circuits and soldering using the given starter kit shown below. It consisted of an arduino uno board, batteries to power it, a photo resistor/resistor that changes its resistance according to the amount of light that hits it,

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Starter Kit

So with these resources, we will create a light sensing box that changes color the darker it gets around the sensor on the box. We were taught the basics of soldering – which means to join two wires using a hot-tip soldering iron and tin metal as a joint -then setting up the wires in the right connections with the LED lights and resistors, and finally plugging them into the arduino boards that were preset with the code needed for the final product. I enjoyed my time working on these so much that I bought some parts to work on my own personal projects and thats one of the effects that the FabLab has on people – inspiring the maker mentality to people that visit.

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My Final Circuit

And now that we will have these skills and be familiar with these resources, we will be able to apply them to our own group projects due at the end of the semester. I am looking forward to the next two weeks where I will learn how to use laser cutters, write Arduino code and bring them all together. And I suggest everyone gets involved in the fablab nearest to their communities. Here’s links to learn more about Fablabs and where to find the nearest one. Link 1. Link 2.

Structured Creativity: Being the Piece to the Puzzle (Solution to the Problem)

In recent times, people believe that every problem has already been solved or that there are no more ideas to come up with – the difficulties and lack of creativity. This week helped us find ways around this.

To be the missing piece to the puzzle, you have to know what the puzzle is – you have to imagine what will fill in the missing spot.

This is the first thing we learned this semester – how we can address problems using What/SoWhat/NowWhat template. It is a brainstorming method that can help ideators immerse themselves in the problem/situation to be able to empathize with the user and then come up with a solution – the missing piece. This template allows people to have a structured way of being creative, innovative and problem solving. It gives a broadly scoped problem a structure, a frame and a regularities. And during this week of class, that is what we did, using the What/SoWhat/NowWhat and the HowCanWe that we learned first from our exercise with the Design for America group. Jacob Goldenberg, David Mazursky, and Sorin Solomon’s article “Creative Sparks” does a great job in explaining this and analysing the need and usefullness of the application of frames or regularities in the creative process. They even go further in giving examples and I could draw more examples from industry situations where companies essentially copy another companies process but for a different field or problem but are still deemed ‘creative’. This template used more specifically to coming up with a solution to an already given problem by using or modifying something that already existed. This kind of tied into what David Kelley said in his interview with 60Minutes.  It encompassed the How Can We methodology and the idea to improve on something else that already exists. Using what we learned, we came up with diagram below which showcases that structure that we used to come up with ideas listed below.

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We used this structure in a different way. We used it to decide which problem to tackle then applied it to that problem. As seen in our picture above

For our semester project, what we have so far:

1.) Feedback/Story droid –   inspired by the blabdroid

-How can we capture students stories in the MakerLab?

-How can we make a place (The MakerLab) more interactive?

2.) Self Watering Plant pot – inspired by a thingiverse model

-How can we help potted plant goers water their plants when they are not around?

3.) Board copier/transfer – our very own idea

-How can we help students with limited/timed access to whiteboards keep/transfer their work to another whiteboard or physical print?

4.) Time management compact holder/watch – our very own idea that we came up with using the template in the picture above.

-How can we help busy students manage their time or balance between (Sleep, Study and Social Life)?

We also got to listen to Mike Bohlman tell his story in creativity and the maker movement at the Makerspace in Urbana. Not only is he a pilot and gamer but he is a maker who comes up with ideas in the area of former two such as 3D printing holders for instruments in the cockpit for one of the planes he flies and the StarWars game that he made and is up for display at a game store in Champaign. To see more of his great work and projects, they are all available on his website at this link. He incorporates the lessons (templating) we learnt this week in his work with arduinos by improving and modifying code that he finds online in a new and innovative way.

This concept of structured creativity is a powerful concept, and I hope to incorporate it in our semester project. Other resources to learn more about this is also Edward de Bono’s article ‘Creativity is easier when it’s structured’.