Will you be my Cubby Buddy? (The Grand Finale)

Now presenting our final project:

Cubby Buddies

designed and created by Rachel Hwang, Magnolia Pak, and Vivian Yu

 

At the Child Study center many children are unable to reach the top shelf of their cubbies to store their art projects and other creations due to their small stature. Our Cubby Buddy remedies this issue with a sliding step that not only enables children to put away their art projects on the top shelf but also fosters independence.

The Cubby Buddy is activated by pulling it out with a foot, then stepping on top and embracing this new power that comes with height and stepping off once desired and kicking the Cubby Buddy back in.We designed the Cubby Buddy to be used with feet rather than hands because child are top heavy and have a natural instinct to kick things in.
There are also measures to remind children to kick the Cubby Buddy back in, including a kick sign and lights that light up as soon as the Cubby Buddy is pulled out.
Cost of the Cubby Buddy: Wood ~$14, Supports ~$5.50, LEDs ~$2, Drawer Slides ~$8.50, Soldering Board ~$4. Total Cost: ~ $34

The history of the Cubby Buddy:
Week 1&2: Brainstorming
We decided that we wanted to work on the step cubby project because it was a problem that was different than all of the other groups and was a problem that the Child Study Center always had.
In further brainstorming, first we looked at collapsable stairs: much like the ones used for attics or pets, but we soon decided that it would be to complicated and more unsafe for the children due to too many moving parts.So we stuck with an idea similar to what we started with: a drawer type sliding step. Now presenting: Cubby Buddies!

Week 3: Cardboard Prototype and Lights code
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.

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)


Week 4: Wood Prototype
This week we got our wood to build our final prototype of the cubby and went to a checkup with Becky about our progress.
Final Prototype logistics:
We got our wood! Unfortunately it is not exactly the same size as we specified, so we had to redo some math to make sure all of the pieces fit together. We also learned how to drill and cut plywood (and splintered a lot of wood). Building a cubby took way more time than we expected, but shockingly the hardest part was drilling the drawer slides in, because of the precision required and the fact that the drill did not fit into the cubby much to our dismay.
 

Here's our wood cubby next to our cardboard cubby!

We added the L brackets to the Cubby Buddy to insure it's stability and to increase the load it can take. 

We also made a sign, as per suggestion of last time we made a sign to tell the children to kick in the Cubby Buddy when they are done using it, we also decided to make the sign light up so it is easier to see and easily distinguishable.

Our kick sign

Week 5: Putting it all together: adding bottom piece, testing buttons and lights, and soldering
This is our last week working on our Cubby Buddy before the final presentation! And the Cubby Buddy team is working on putting all of the pieces of our project together.

Horray it works! and can support one whole Vivian

Bottom piece:

To maximize space for the children to put shoes in we decided to make the bottom support piece like a bracket shape so it will not interfere with any storage space at all. We also added a piece of delrin to the bottom to decrease the friction between the bottom piece and the ground because delrin has really low friction.















Here is a video of the bottom support in action:

Lights:
For the lights we decided we wanted a bunch of lights lining the the front of a cubby shelf and a light up sign. First we tried to individually light up all of the lights, but that proved impossible because we would have to control each light separately and we do not have enough arduino pins to accomplish that. Instead we figured out how to make a string of lights by soldering a bunch of LEDs to two strings of wire. (In other words we found out how to make homemade Christmas lights!)
Once we made the strings of LEDs we strung them on a part of the cubby and inside the paper sign.

First trial with string of LEDs SUCCESS! 

Button:
Here is the button that we are using to detect whether the Cubby Buddy is in the cubby or not, we placed it in the back of the cubby so when the Cubby Buddy is completely in the cubby it will be pressed. We also had to wire this from the bottom of the cubby all the way to the top of the cubby where the arduino is.

Soldering it all together:
Once we figured out how to wire everything, we soldered everything together and placed it inside a little box that we made (for the aesthetics).

And here is our Cubby Buddy in action!

Final impressions and thoughts!
I am really happy with our Cubby Buddy and Becky seemed ready to try to get one for the Child Study Center, so all in all I count it as a job well done.
But as it is with all projects, there is definitely room for improvement, I think one of the big ones is price. The Cubby Buddy currently costs about $34, which is a lot considering there are 37 total cubbies in the Child Study Center but it is also true that prototypes are bound to cost more than if it was implemented in real life. I also think that the lights probably are not all that necessary and if we were not given the control and feedback requirement we probably would not have made them. It's a shame that we don't have time to test it out in real time with the children because I also wonder if the children will just play with the Cubby Buddy instead of using it because of the blinking lights. Given more time I would also want to explore adding the handles we had in the first design to make this even more safe and accessible for children.
Looking at the timeline of our Cubby Buddy we have come really far from our first brainstorms, this long and arduous journey of splinters, soldering burns, late nights at the engineering lab is one that I will never forget. All I have left to say is: Will you be my Cubby Buddy?