PROJECT Development
Welcome to the very last week of my blog ! Today I will be sharing about my group's chemical device! We have spent a lot of time and effort into making this device work and we tried our best to fixed certain issues like programming.
1. Our team Chemical Device
The objective of our product is to prevent drunk driving accidents by preventing drunk people from driving. With the help of our chemical device, this will greatly reduce the number of car accidents that is related to alcohol.
Cars are common in the 21st century, as the number of vehicles increases, accidents related to cars also increases. A lot of these accidents occurred due to irresponsible driving behavior, like drinking while driving, which is one of the biggest causes of car accidents.
Our device is a breathanalyzer that is installed onto the steering wheel. The device can detect alcohol from the driver’s breath and once a certain alcohol level is detected, our device will alert the driver that he is not suitable to drive through the use of LED lights, alarm, system that prevents driver from starting the vehicle and LCD screen that shows the Breath Alcohol Content (BAC) and that alcohol is detected. This is how the LCD works when the driver is in:
- Proper condition for driving: LCD shows “SAFE TO DRIVE”
- Drunk state: LCD shows “BAC = xxx mg/L” and “ALCOHOL DETECTED”
As for the alarm, it will turn on once driver is unsafe for driving. The alarm will be activated together with the red LED lights once the driver is not fit for driving. If he/she is not under alcohol influence, the LED light will be green, and alarm is not activated.
As for the system that prevents driver from starting the vehicle, when alcohol is detected before the driver starts the engine, this system will prevent driver from starting the engine. This prevents the chances of drunk driving as the driver is not allowed to drive when he is drunk.
By using this chemical device, it will solve issues of the people from drinking while driving. When the alcohol sensor detects alcohol from the driver, the car engine will stop hence prevent the driver from driving. As such, this will reduce the number of accidents on the road. This chemical device promotes road safety.
Gantt Chart
Part 1, design and build of Breathanalzyer Frame (done by Kit and Steward)
I was in charge of the designing process while Steward is in charge of making the design into 3D using Fusion360
Link to Steward's blog:https://cp5070-2021-2b01-group5-stewardsoh.blogspot.com/p/project-development.html
Part 2. Design and Build of steering wheel (done by kit & Nander) Link to Kit’s Blog
After planning out and designing the chemical device, which is the breathalyzer, our group feel that it would be better if we could create a steering wheel for our device to be put on. By making the steering wheel, we felt that it would be easier to visualize how it works and easier representation of how our chemical device works in an actual scenario.
The problem that we had is that the steering wheel could not be printed using the 3D printer as it is too big, and it would take a long time to be printed. Thus, we came up with an idea to use a laser cutting machine to cut out 5 parts of steering wheel and stack it on top of one another to make it look 3 dimensional.
1. The first step is to create a sketch, then choose a plane for the sketch to be drawn on
2. After choosing a plane, we then set Parametric for each of the desired radius and thickness of our steering wheel.
3. After setting all the desired parametric, draw out a circle and choose the set parametric accordingly
4. To create the curve part of the wheel on bottom left and right of the wheel, use the arc function and mirror it and it should look like the picture as shown below. By using mirror function, this ensures both curves are symmetrical.
5. After drawing out and setting up all the parameters, create another 2 more of the same shape with a smaller outer diameter. Hence, we would be getting smaller and smaller wheel size so that it could be stacked and look 3 dimensional.
6. After creating all the sketches, we decided to make some holes for a connecter to go into each of the layers. Since each layer is around 3.5mm, we have a total of 5 layers, where the biggest layer is in the middle while the smaller layer is the outermost layer. Thus, length of the connecter would be around 3.5mm x 5 = 17mm
7. The picture below is what we had in mind, where the holes will be used as connector parts. Each layer is stacked on top of the other to make it look 3 dimensional.
Insert his html: <iframe src="https://ichat2234.autodesk360.com/shares/public/SH9285eQTcf875d3c53976e117db2d5d67be?mode=embed" width="800" height="600" allowfullscreen="true" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Insert this html: <iframe src="https://ichat2234.autodesk360.com/shares/public/SH9285eQTcf875d3c5391e239b298b30bbb3?mode=embed" width="800" height="600" allowfullscreen="true" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Documentation for integration.
For the integration of our components, we first used Fusion360 to ensure that our printed breathanalyzer frame is well thought out in terms of dimensions. After using Fusion360 to position all the components inside the frame, we assured that the frame can fit the components well. And we planned to integrate the components just like the one shown below.
4. Problems and solutions
Problems | Solutions |
Planning of chemical device | Getting components that are not available in school was part of the issue, we searched online for extra parts. We needed to contact the supplier from overseas in order to obtain parts like the filter.
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Steering wheel model | During the discussion, we wanted to 3D print the steering wheel, but the time taken to bring the model of the life size steering wheel would take way too long. We had come up with a solution, we decided to use laser cutting as an alternative to 3D printing. Since laser cutting is only a 2D shaped object and it does not look 3D, we agreed on making multiple layers of the steering wheel of different sizes so that the steering wheel looks 3D. Moreover, we had also used a pin to hold the layers together instead of using superglue/hot glue.
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Arduino programming | The key problem with the Arduino programming is that one the programmable button is pressed, the sensor does not measure alcohol content anymore, due to our lack of knowledge in Arduino, we were not able to figure out what was wrong.
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Fusion360 design | We used the hinge that we learnt from our 3D printing sessions to allow us open our chemical device. Moreover, we also design the snap fit to allow each of our chemical device parts to fit onto one another like lego parts, hence we do not need to use super glue/hot glue. Of course, if our snap fit does not work, we are still open to using glue as an alternative solution.
Due to the long duration of printing, we decided to increase the print speed and adjusted other print settings to shorten the duration. However, the trade-off is that the print quality was really bad, so the snap fit that was designed earlier did not fit at all. So, we had to improvise, and we decided to use hot glue to join the parts together.
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3D printing time/Cura | After designing, we realized that the time taken for the printing of our chemical product is around 25 hours and the maximum time that we can book the 3D printer for is 4h.
We changed the entire device design and made some tweaks to it. We change the length and height slightly, making it slightly different from our original design. Moreover, we also changed the infill percentage to 10%, to ensure that the 3D printer takes lesser time to print.
Apart from changing the designs, we split our chemical device into 3 main parts. Hence instead of spending 25h to print our chemical device, we can use 2 or more 3D printers to print each part of our chemical device and each respective parts would take significantly lesser time to print, about 3-5h per parts. |
5. Project Design Files as downloadable files
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16y1UlO99ExiB388gULxJICAROKm0-nkl?usp=sharing
Reflection
During the entire process of making this chemical device, i would say it's a rather tiring process. We have met with so many difficulties, especially the arduino programming part. We did not know what was wrong and it took us a really long time for us to solve it. Apart from the arduino, we also had problems using the laser cutting machine. During the designing process, when we used the cura to estimate the time that would take for us to print our product, it turned out to be 25h long and we spent so much time and effort in trying to reduce that number by redesigning our entire chemical device. All in all, i would say that this module is really draining, however i did learn new skills like 3D printing, designing using Fusion360 and handtooling. Lastly, learning not to give up plays a huge part in making our chemical device come alive.
For this project, we did a lot of things such as designing prototype
using CAD Fusion360 and printing it out using 3D printer and laser
cutting the steering wheel. Not only that, but we also used what
we have learnt from Arduino Programming tutorials and applied it in this project.
Basically, this project tests us on all the technical skills we have learnt
from ICPD and CPDD. We would say it is not easy to build a breathanalyzer
in a short semester because it is our first time building a smart device and we
feel puzzled from time to time as things did not work out the way we
wanted.
Nonetheless, what we could do to tackle the challenges is to go back to
the lecture notes, practices, and blogs where we have documented everything we
have gone through. For example, during laser cutting, we forgot what the
setting is for cutting and engraving so we referred to our blog and managed to
do it smoothly. As for the Arduino programming, what we learnt in tutorial is
not sufficient to meet our objective so what we did was to do a lot of research
and find resources and videos that could potentially help us to make our
breathanalyzer works. We tried the codes on our circuit and see if it works, if
not we improvise the codes so that it meets the objective. We only managed to
make our Arduino Programming work after the fourth time of trying it. What we
learned from this experience is that it is important to have growth mindset and
perseverance because we would not have come this far without that mindset. When
met with challenges, instead of giving up, we always try again and encourage
one another that it can work.
When doing this project, we always try to do it face to face with
minimal online meeting as we find doing face to face more efficient. As we know
that the school curriculum is very tight, we treasure the time where we met in
school for CPDD and practical session as this is the only time where we can
really make big progress with all the facilities available. For every class or
practical session, we always set a goal to finish by the end of the day so that
things are going according to our plan.
In conclusion, even though we learned a lot of technical skills, we also
learned a lot of soft skills such as communication. Communication is key and,
in our team, we respect and listen to one another opinion so that no one is
left out. During the process, we also find out about the working style of each
member, so we know the strength and weakness of one another. Thus, we always
try to help with one another weaknesses. For example, steward is better at
programming, so he takes in charge of programming. Kit is better at designing
and sketching so he did the drawings and I help out with researching and
editing videos. We are confident that our skills will help us go through the
final year capstone project.
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