As Digital Making comes to a close, I would like to reflect on how much I have learned and changed as a person due to this course. I had never expected a course to take up a lot of my time and make me still love every bit of it in the end. Through this class, my skill set has been taken to another level as I have learned so much about the maker movement and mindset, a set of workshop and design skills, and the ideating/prototyping process.

The Maker Movement and Mindset

Maker Movement

The Maker Movement was the center of discussion for the first few weeks of classes. This movement focused on individual or collaborated effort to produce new products or enhance existing products. The movement encourages and supports the use of open source softwares/hardwares and engineering oriented interests such 3D printing and electronics. Although the movement encourages the use of engineering-oriented pursuits, participants also could have hobbies in non-technological activities which can range from woodworking to traditional arts and crafts. It was in this first few weeks that we not only learned what the movement was, but what it was about. The movement is all about creating, innovating and and sharing, which is why we began these blogs, to share what we have made and learned!

Maker Mindset

The maker mindset is the way in which makers think. There’s many different ways of thinking of a product design. However, in this class we focused  on Design for America’s thought process and Tim Brown’s method of Design Thinking. These two processes shared the similar idea of designing to meet an identified need in a technologically feasible way. You can read more about how we used our new maker mindsets in a Design for America workshop here.

Workshop and Design Skills

3D Modeling

In this class, we learned how to use TinkerCAD and Fusion 360. I have never 3D modeled before and it took me a lot of time and practice to get used to it. The more I kept trying to use the programs, the more I realized that the controls are actually very intuitive. My learning curve improved with Jeff Smith’s Fusion 360 workshop, but this skill was still in development for me and was probably my weakest skill.

Lasers and Woodworking

My first workshop in the FabLab was working with wood, Inkscape and laser cutters. Inkscape which was very similar to Adobe Illustrator.  I’ve had experience with Adobe Illustrator , so I didn’t struggle too much with it. I found it so interesting that so much work came into preparing an image to be cut with a laser. From this workshop, not only have I learned how to cut and engrave with lasers, I have also realized how flexible these laser cutters are and how these laser cutters have a tremendous amount of applications and uses in product design. I found it very fun and expressive to work with lasers. Read more about the designing and laser cutting here.

Circuitry and Coding

Coding was something I was familiar with from my computer science years in high school. Circuitry however was a whole different area. I found it absolutely satisfying to be able to program something and see a physical response in the form of a blinking light. These two skills became increasingly important in creating our final project of a hydration wristband. Read about my first circuit experience here.

Soldering

Soldering was actually really interesting and fun to do once I got over my fear of being burned. The process of soldering was quite tricky at first bu once I realized that the led solder should be fed into the soldering iron rather than using the iron to put the led onto the object to be soldered. You can read more about my soldering experience here.

Ideating and Prototyping for our Final Project

This project first taught us how to identify problems and do research to help understand the consumers who we are trying to solve the problem for. We learned how to turn that research into smart product designs for the consumer and start prototyping using what we learned in design workshops at the FabLab to bring those designs into reality. We also learned how design audits can foster an innovative learning environment and help reveal flaws in function or design to help perfect a product. Finally, we learned that the process of bringing an idea to fruition is an exhausting and difficult process which takes time. In all, it was a learning experience that we would remember in the coming years of our lives. Read about our experience here, here and here.

Reflection

At the beginning of the course, I was hoping to be able to create something that was meant to help people. Looking back, these expectations were met with our groups prototype of the H2Go. This experience was much more difficult yet easier than I had expected. The difficulty came from putting it all together but what I found surprisingly easy is the skills which we learned in our mere semester in Digital Making. From this one semester, I learned more about myself than I thought possible from a class. I learned that I was capable of learning and creating incredible things. If I could learn how to do this, so can anyone. Being a part of the Maker Movement is so empowering.

Expectations and Reflections: 

It was out of curiosity and a suggestion from a friend that made me pick this class from a extensive list of Electives I could have picked in my last semester as a Senior. I had briefly heard interesting things about 3-D printing and making almost anything you wanted from scratch. I hoped to learn how to prototype, design and apply myself in a way which I had never done before. Looking back after the semester long course I have come a long way as not only an engineer but also as someone who cares deeply about the things around us and making a difference in our community.

The Experience: 

My experience kicked off with some motivating and inspirational Guest Lectures from Jeff Gringer and John Hornick who talked about the Maker movement and where its headed. It instilled in me some kind of responsibility to be a part of the movement and make a difference in a way where I could leverage my skills as a Materials Engineer.

In the next few weeks we had an opportunity to attend a workshop conducted by representatives from the Design for America team at UIUC. I gained a deep understanding about what designing actually is and what it entails from the user and who it impacts. As a team we came up with a novel idea about using Goggle Glasses for deep sea diver which was pretty awesome. This experience helped me shape ideas during my next few weeks of the course and was fundamentally very important to the success of our tea, JJJ inc. 

The next week we got a chance to work with Fusion 360 which was of great use moving into our final projects. This powerful application helped us create almost any object we could think of and was pivotal in our making journey. More about this software can be found using this link.

This is the part where everything kicked off into full steam where we were not only thinking about the next big idea but also making it. Our final semester project started off with a brainstorming session, we came up with 3 issues we each faced in our day to day life and ideated some crude solutions to those problems. I learnt how much we over emphasize coming up with a product rather than solving the problem with the product in hand. Here are our initial few ideas we sketched for the final project this semester :

Week 6,7 and 8 the class spend learning and making at the Champaign Urbanas Fab lab! From learning how to code an Arduino to soldering and laser cutting plywood we learnt useful skills which we could implement while making our final project.

It was finally time to put our CADing, ideation and prototyping skills into action. Our group, JJJ inc, is designing a smart switch which can potentially pave way for cheaper smart homes and user customization. The next few classes we worked on designing and prototyping our Smart light switch. Here are some images from our initial sketches, mechanical designs and our final working switch seen as the bottom most picture.

I was so content with myself and overall really happy with the hard work, time and effort put by team JJJ inc to make the project from a mere idea to something which actually works like how we had imagined it. This class led me to belief that if you want to make something happen, there are enough resources, technology and like minded people to help you along, you just need to apply yourself and grind till you see the results unfold. I would finally like to thank Vishal Sachedva for his expertise and help!

From the conception of our idea to the final presentation and prototype, our group has grown and learned so much from this project. This project first taught us how to identify problems and do research to help understand the consumers who we are trying to solve the problem for. Then we learned how to turn that research into smart product designs for the consumer and start prototyping using what we learned in design workshops at the FabLab to bring those designs into reality. We also learned cooperation and design audits can foster an innovative learning environment and help reveal flaws in function or design to help perfect a product.. Finally, we learned that the process of bringing an idea to fruition is an exhausting and difficult process which takes time. In all, it was a learning experience that we would remember in the coming years of our lives.

Prototype 1

At the very beginning, we did a feasibility test based on the resource we could access to. The band essentially consists of two parts. One was the band and the other was the circuit. Because the band should be wearable on the wrist, we chose to use the 3D-printer with semi-flex material to print the band. For the sensor, we planned to buy a humidity sensor from the market. However, to minimize the size of the sensor, we decided to make the sensor by ourselves. The logic behind the self-made sensor was very simple. A person’s hydration level would affect the humidity level of the skin and the humidity level of the skin would affect the skin’s resistance. Thus, measuring the resistance of the skin can help estimate whether a person is dehydrated or not. None of us were electric engineering student, so we need to outsource the circuit design. Fortunately, we found a full-time staff, Mr. Rice, at Fab lab to assist us.

The first step for us was to make the sensor. Based on the design logic, we placed two copper tapes on the skin and measure the resistance between them. We did a lot of experiments to test the sensitivity of the copper tapes with different distances to find the best distance. At the end, we determined that 2 mm was the best parameter and we also made a cardboard prototype with basic circuit wires soldered together. The first prototype was non-functional but it gave us a direction to improve our prototype for the rest of our project.

Prototype 2

Prototype 2 was functional and realized our idea. We designed and cut the circuit by our hands. We also integrated the mini-Arduino controller to our handmade circuit with the help of soldering technique. One giant improvement we did for prototype 2 was replacing the LED light by RGB-LED light. RGB-LED light could flash red, green, and blue three colors, which means that we could send three different signals to our users.  As you can see from the picture below: Flashing red means “dehydration”; flashing blue means “functioning well”; flashing green means “sweating”.

Below is the picture for prototype 2

Prototype 3

Although prototype2 is functional, it is not stable and would malfunction from times to times. Thus, we adopted silhouette technique to improve the precision. More specifically, we designed our circuit on the laptop first and then used the laser machine to print our circuit. Another giant improvement we did was the battery integration. We also designed the circuit to power both the controller and the sensor. The design could not only compress the space for the whole circuit, but also make the sensor contact the skin seamlessly.

After making our 3rd prototype, we were design audited by other teams who gave us many suggestions to improve our product. Some of these suggestions included LED blinking edits, vibrations and possibly a redesign of our product to fit as a water bottle attachment. Additionally, we prototype tested our 3rd prototype with Brandon and he had also suggest having vibrations to notify the user along with the flashing lights.

Following the feedback provided via the design audit and the prototype testing, we had to reevaluated our acceptance criteria for our design. One of the group’s suggestions was to make sure that the user is able to realize they are dehydrated after the blinking, so we reprogrammed our product to blink 6 times and then stay red for as long as the user is considered dehydrated. Additionally, we made circuit backing must be non-conductive. We discovered we needed to make this amendment after we tried to solder the original plastic backing and it burned. Additionally, we decided to remove the fitbit so that the sensor would be able to lie flat on the wrist.

For our fourth and final prototype, Ana reprogrammed the product to follow the new acceptance criteria. Additionally, we changed the plastic backing to a silicon backing on the circuit since silicon is non-conductive. Unfortunately, during this prototyping session, we lost our original mini Arduino and had to replace it with an Arduino Gemma. Furthermore, we redesigned the band to only house the sensor.

The challenges throughout the entire project included finding time which coincided with the FabLab and MakerLab hours, failed prints due to issues with semi-flex material, time constraints and the lost Arduino. The lost Arduino and time constraint heavily impacted our final prototype because unlike the mini Arduino, the Gemma had no serial monitoring capability which had allowed us to set parameters to detect dehydration.

If our group had more time to develop this project, we would consider the suggestions given to us such as making various versions of the H2Go as well as looking at simultaneous vibration notifications. We would also try testing out different ways of detecting dehydration and different materials for a more flexible circuit and band.

From this project, we have all learned not only how to have a maker mindset, but how to utilize it, problem solve and be patient. Although our final prototype did not fully function, we knew that with time, patience, hard work and perseverance, this prototype could be fully functional. In the end, there were a few changes which we could have done but we were very proud at the effort we put in and the presentation we gave with our product.

Please enjoy our presentation and video of our project efforts:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11BLx_Y5sHx8jQ7nchAaBzwmnCHgrnrwM86iBMOHTHD4/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000 

This has been one of the best classes I’ve decided to take throughout all four years of my college career. It fulfilled my expectations and provided me with even more, and I’ve already recommended this course to my underclassmen classmates. When I first heard about this class, I thought it was solely about how to create 3D printing designs and operate the 3D printers. Boy did I underestimate the things I’d learn! In this next section of this post, I will provide a list of the main things I’ve learned throughout the semester.

THINGS I’VE LEARNED:

3D Printing

During the first few sessions of BADM 395, we learned how to use a 3D printing slicing software called Cura and the Ultimaker machine to print out 3D products. We were also exposed to many open communities and sources like Thingiverse to gather creative ideas. Here’s a link to my first blog post.

Autodesk Fusion 360

Learning how to use this 3D printing designing program was both challenging and fascinating. There were just so many functions available to make the perfect design that it definitely felt very overwhelming in the beginning. However, after following video instructions and watching guest speaker, Jeff Smith, demonstrate how to use Fusion 360, it became an amazing tool. Here’s my post about my first experience with this great program.

Arduino

Later in the semester, we had the opportunity to learn about the Arduino, soldering, and laser cutting at the CU Fab Lab. The Arduino is a programmable microcontroller which contains pieces of codes that execute on demand. The Arduino is then connected to LEDs, motors, and motion sensors via IO pins. We first learned how to wire the board. Then, we moved on to connecting it to a computer software and inputting codes that control the Arduino. Read more about it here.

Soldering

Also at the Fab Lab, I was exposed to soldering for the first time. It required steady hands and a lot of patience but was very well worth it in the end. I was able to solder wires together and connect them to the board and LED lights. Here’s more.

Laser Cutting with Inkscape

The last thing I learned at the Fab Lab was using Inkscape to create laser cutting designs. I learned the difference between cutting and rastering and how to safely operate the laser cutting machine. I had a lot of fun putting everything I’ve learned in the Fab Lab together and creating the final product shown in the picture below. Read more here.

FINAL TAKEAWAYS:

I cannot express how impressed I am in this Digital Making seminar and really encourage anyone, no matter your major or year, to take this course. For me personally, I’ve never thought of myself to have much to do with the area of art/design/technology, though ironically I’m a daughter of an artist. This class, however, changed my point of view on the maker world. It taught me that ANYBODY can be a maker, as long as you have a curious mind and willingness to learn and solve problems. In the future, I’ll definitely be more aware about the maker world and maybe utilize some of the things I’ve learned described above in my future career.

It seems like so long ago when I first stepped into the MakerLab that January evening. I remember that the first time, I had trouble finding the room in BIF, but it soon became a course that I always looked forward to on Monday afternoons. Sad to see it all go, but I’ve learned and experienced so much in my time here that it was well worth the time spent. After signing up for the course, I initially believed it would be exclusively about 3D printing, and a good way to keep up with my hobby. And while the course was indeed mainly centered on additive manufacturing, we explored many other related aspects. I got to experience other non-conventional uses of 3D printing, other making processes such as laser cutting, and get more intuitive with the art of the creative process in general. It’s been a fantastic semester, and I’m happy to recap it all here.

Intro to 3D Printing:

I’ve already a lot of experience with 3D printers ever since high school, which is the main reason that I took up this course. It had been a while since I had used one, but when we began to go over the basics of 3D printing everything started to flow back in. I was really excited to work with the Ultimakers as they were the highest quality printers that I have ever worked with aside from maybe Makerbots. For my first print in the lab, I printed a simple whistle.

Design Thinking:

I used multiple CAD programs for a variety of projects ever since I got into 3D printing. And before I took the Digital Making course I believed that all their was to it was creating a model in CAD and printing it. If it didn’t work, just try again. On the very surface, it really is that simple; but if you dig deeper there is much more behind it. Every idea; every design; every creation is born out of necessity. They each have their own purpose decided by the user. I used to believe that everything I did in my creative process just came out of thin air, but in reality I was following a similar pattern. Design thinking is the basis of all problem-solving.

The Design Thinking Process

Fusion 360:

Fusion was the most complex software I had ever dealt with, and I am very glad I was introduced to it in the course. For the most part, all my designs were created with simpler softwares such as TinkerCAD and 123D design. Fusion 360 was quite the step up. It’s a complex yet vivid software the contains a plethora of tools and allows the user to operate and edit their model with much greater freedom than most other CAD programs. While difficult to get used to, in the proper hands it can create anything.

Breakdown of a mechanical pencil

The Fab Lab:

Our adventures at the CU community Fab Lab might just be my favorite part of the course. I was amazed that such a wonderful and innovative place was practically hidden on campus. Unless you had prior knowledge you’d probably never realize it was here. It was satisfying to know that there was a place on campus where makers could go to explore and innovate. It’s a place where ides flourish and become reality. Those 3 weeks we spent there, learning the different making processes (Programming, Electronics, and Laser Cutting) and being able to create our own special projects was incredibly fun and very memorable. I’m sure to remember the Fab Lab for the rest of my time here at UIUC and if I ever need anything for a special endeavor, I know where to look.

Circuits

Laser Cutting

Arduino IDE

The result of all three

Art Annex 2

1301 South Goodwin Avenue

Urbana, IL 61801

3D Scanning:

Being able to scan a 3D model of one’s own bust for printing is about as old as 3D printing itself. While I didn’t actually partake in it, it was a good experience to actually see it first hand. It’s a shame we couldn’t incorporate something like it into our project, or that the desktop 3D scanner didn’t seem to work well. But they are both still quite fascinating and amusing.

Scanning

Takeaways:

Taking this course was really a delight for me. I became very passionate about 3D printing a few years ago, and was overjoyed when I found out there was a class available involving it. I got to explore my hobby again, and discuss it with other individuals who were also interested. I was able to improve upon my existing skills, as well as gain some new ones. To wrap it all up, I got the opportunity to use what I’ve gained and know to create one big final project to share with the rest of the class. Being able to see what everyone else had created and sharing our ideas was a pleasure. It’s been a fun semester, and I’m glad I was able to experience this my freshman year, which means I’ll have plenty of time to be in the MakerLab. I’d like to extend my thanks to Vishal for teaching the class, the MakerLab gurus for being so helpful, all the guest speakers, the folks at the Fab Lab, and my fellow makers who ventured this course with me. It’s been a blast!

My Expectations and Experience:

To be completely honest walking into Digital Making Seminar, I had relatively high expectations for Badm 395.  However, looking back in retrospect I can know confidently proclaim that all my expectations had been superseded. Originally, I wanted to take Digital Making Seminar because I had very little background knowledge in 3D printing and wanted to gain a more comprehensive understanding of innovative and groundbreaking technology available today. I had envisioned Digital Making Seminar to be class that only encompassed 3D printing and different business solutions that could be formulated from 3D printing, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. This class transcended the provisional scope of my expectations for this class: we covered CAD Software, Circuiting, Arduino and Breadboards, Laser Cutting, Design Thinking, Rapid Prototyping and so much more that I will touch upon in just a little bit. Coming into class, I thought Digital Making Seminar would be an excellent opportunity to allow me to gain comprehensive knowledge in the digital world but relatively unrelated to my post graduation plans. However, as I leave class I know realize that everything I learned in Digital Making Seminar is SO APPLICABLE. I will be going full-time in July doing technology consulting and the digital practice in all technology consulting practices are growing exponentially. With all this being said, I can’t wait to have the potential opportunity to explore digital practices within IBM so that I can apply skills that I’ve gained in this class to the workplace enviorment.  Looking back on this class now, I am so glad I took the opportunity to continue to expand my horizons and challenge myself as a second semester senior, make so great friends, and of course take another great class with Professor Vishal who inspired me to become an Information Systems major (and you can’t forget about the pizza either! haha).

My Learning:

CAD Software

In CAD, I learned how to utilize TinkerCad and Fusion 360 software. While difficult at first, I was able to ultimately successfully craft both the tutorial structure as well as my own personalized heel prototype in Fusion 360 after a couple of iterations and failures. While perseverance truly led me to create the prototypes, without the help of Jeff Smith and all his excellent teaching of AutoDesk Fusion 360 there would have been no way I could have accomplished the following two prototypes:

Circuits & Coding with Arduinos:

The Fab Lab was an absolutely unbelievable experience. The amount that I was able to learn in three weeks was amazing. From never soldering wires before, I was able to not only successfully solder wires but also successfully wire both an arduino board and breadboard to act as a light sensor, with LED lights indicating on a spectrum whether little to a lot light was present within a room. Additionally, I was able to get my hands dirty and do some coding in Arduino to program the arduino to have that specific functionality. While I had a little bit of coding experience in VBA and R previously, Fab Lab really gave me the opportunity to have a 360 degree view of the digital world and all the innovative steps the digital community is striving to make a difference in today’s world.

3D-Expression:

In Laser cutting and wood engraving, I learned that while the digital revolution is innovative and groundbreaking it’s always imperative to have fun with technology. And, what better way to have fun with wood engraving and laser cutting that to express yourself: Here is my arduino board circuit box with images that best describe myself:

Big Data and Its Implication on 3D printing:

For my own personalized project, I examined how 3D printing and Big Data complemented each other in today’s business world. It was amazing to see what MIT students had accomplished with data visualization and 3D printing. By printing a 3D structure of the campus of MIT and overlaying it with unstructured Twitter Data, so many powerful insights could be drawn on students at MIT:

Additionally, General Electric was also utilizing Big data to help rapidly prototype some of its turbine engine parts take a look:

Innovation By Simplicity:

Through Team Supra’s DoorJar, I learned that innovation doesn’t always have to fall in the category of groundbreaking or new-to-the-world product development. But much rather sometimes, the greatest innovations truly stem from simplicity. For instance, innovation by simplicity yields easy constructability, low costs, and room for continuous improvement without drastically increasing the price. And in turn, commercializing these innovations and bringing them to market they also have a high likelihood of generating profits for a company. And, that is exactly why Team Supra chose to create DoorJar.

Design Thinking & Rapid Prototyping:

Lastly, Design Thinking & Rapid Prototyping are two crucial concepts that I learned in class that will be carried over in my life post graduation. Realizing how design thinking and agile software develop framework (which I was fortunate to work in this summer) go hand in hand was truly a unique experience as well to see how applicable the concepts we were learning in Digital Making Seminar truly applied in the real business world. Rapid Prototyping opens opportunities in manufacturing to medical to renewable energy to software development and so many other industries, and I honestly cannot wait to have an opportunity to utilize rapid prototyping again.

Personal Professional Development & Growth:

Lastly, the greatest thing I learned in this class cannot be quantified by a subject title or concept. But much rather, Digital Making Seminar taught to continually challenge myself, expanding my horizons, and keeping my mind open. I remember all the times I walked into Fab Lab and thought to myself “no way can I solder wires together”, “no way do I know how to circuit arduino board and I definitely don’t know how to code it”, “I have no experience in Fusion 360 of CAD software how can I possibly be good at this?” But it’s because that I had the courage to try and challenge myself that I was able to solder wires, circuit and code and arduino board, and even help build DoorJar’s prototype in TinkerCad. By keeping my mind open in the future and my hunger for learning, there are so many opportunities in life that will be opened for me in my future.