Final Project Week 3

This week we started making a cardboard prototype of the cubby, planning the wood prototype, and also figured out the code that we need for the lights.

Cardboard Prototype:
Since we didn't have any wood at first we made a cardboard prototype to visually map out what we need to do.

The full cubby

Our cubby buddy

A front view of the cubby buddy

On thing we realized was that we needed something to account for the slight height difference between the cubby buddy and the floor once it is extended out. We first tried to account for this difference by adding wheels to the cubby buddy but then realized that wheels are too big and cumbersome, so we decided to wait until we see the wood prototype to actually see if this difference is significant enough to add something.

Planning final prototype:
We talked about ordering materials for our project and realized that we would not only have to make the cubby buddy but the full cubby which is a lot of wood which adds a lot of cost. Our final cost is ~$50 so we have officially maxed out the budget...

You might notice that "Force Plate" is not listed on there, despite it being our sensor for our lights, we realized that 1. force plates are expensive 2. force plates are heavy and large, both of these factors deterred us from using a force plate. We talked to Xixi about this and after thinking this through we realized that we actually don't need a force sensor because we can just use a button placed cleverly in the back of the cubby that will sense if the cubby buddy is closed or open and use that information to tell the lights when to turn on.

Lights Code!
Now that we know we are using a button, using our past ENGR 160 skills, it was pretty easy to make a code that will tell the lights to turn off then the button is pressed (because the cubby buddy will be in the cubby and pressing the button) and when the button is not pressed the lights will turn on (because the cubby buddy will not be pressing the button since it is out of the cubby)