Methane Sensor Design Reflection

Generally, I believed that our grouped has worked pretty well together throughout this project. In the beginning, when we were brainstorming the design of this project, we got together and talked about our ideas. We went through the design process and we did many research on the internet to give us inspirations. Members in my group were very engaged and we were able to find a general direction of our design in a very short time. After identifying what we needed to do. We split up our work. I made a good document and wrote down a list of things needed to be accomplished. We had Casey working on the explanation, me working on the parts list and codes, Issac and Allen working on the CAD, and Buck working on the schematic. We worked at a steady pace and asked each other questions when we encounter a problem. However, since it took us a long time in the first class to understand how the methane sensor work and how to do this project, Buck suggested that he will just do more research at home and instead worked on painting the robotic project stuff in class. Then in the next class he said that we can just keep on working and he will just finish what we don't finish by himself. While I am grateful that he is very responsible in this project, I think that some other members and I can do this project with more thoughts and skills so that our work loads can be more evenly spread out. In insuring that our grou pis successful in completing the build portion of this project, I believe that every single one of us need to be more engaged during class time and be more productive so that we can get things done on time. 

Inventor Kit Blog Post

From constructing the 16 circuits, I believe that I have gained a better understanding of how circuits work and how computer programming is able to manage the flow of the circuits. Since there were a wide variety of circuits that we built, I was able to explore and learn many things a circuit can do like making a noise, controlling different colors in an LED, and adjusting the brightness according to the lighting. It is similar to the Arduino project because these two projects all used the Arduino program to program and control the circuits. However, it is different because the Arduino Tutorial was when we first got to learn about Arduino and how programming works in terms of building circuits, and for some people it was their first to even learn how to program. In the Arduino project, we mainly focused on the coding: what each code does and how to code so that the circuit does what we want. But for this Inventor Kit, we focused on the construction of the circuits. The coding were already made for you, and you just have to construct your circuits in a way that does what the codes tell.

From building these circuits, I got to experience with building circuits a little bit more. Because the Digital Circuit project was the first time that I had ever build a circuit and I felt like I was very confused and not sure what I was doing. So I really like this project because I got to be more skilled at building a circuit and really had the opportunity to learn why certain things go in certain locations. And I always became more attentive at my problems because throughout the project many things didn't work out and I had to take the time and figure out what the problem is. I believe that this has trained me to be more careful and thoughtful before I start doing anything. In the future, I hope that what I learned in the project will help me to be more knowledgable at approaching problems so that I can have an easier time to do my future projects. And I believe that these projects had really taught me the basics of circuits and programming and I hope that these will be beneficial to me for any future engineering, computer science, or physics related projects I will be doing. 

Digital Circuit Construction Reflection

From designing the circuit last semester until completing the entire project last week, I am grateful for this experience and I have definitely learned many things. In the beginning of this project, I definitely felt hopeless and was uncertain about whether I was able to finish the project. With no previous knowledge about circuit boards, soldering, 3D Printing, etc, I always found myself trying to make sense of what is happening and what really should be done. Every single step of this project was a challenge for me. I did not understand how to design my circuit case, and how circuits work. But I was able to learn a bit more every single day as I constantly researched about the topics and ask people around me for help. Through 3D printing, I was able to observe how the cases I designed can turn out, explore the possibilities within the design, and modify my cases from my mistakes. From getting my parts list together, I got to see what things like capacitors and resistors really look like, and the role they play in the circuit board.  From building the circuit, I learned to use many tools and became more skilled at soldering. 

Even though I became better at soldering, soldering was a big part of the failure on my project. When I was using the breadboard to simulate my circuit, the circuit seems to work fine with my LED flashing and speaker making noise. However, after soldering my circuit on the circuit board, it didn't appear to work. It was because some of my solder went together and this connected some of my pins that should have been connected and messed up my circuit. I should have been more careful with soldering by practicing more. For my circuit case, my circuit case was totally fine, everything went perfectly together. However, when I was trying to print my case from the big printer, I, in a hurry, tried to add some depth to the case of my cap, which somehow made the cap bigger than it should. I should have used the cap from the previous prints. In the future, I needed to be more careful and plan my project more thoroughly and make sure that I understand everything before I proceed to work.