the video

Enjoy the video! Here is the link to the video on YouTube.

Below is a brief description of the final hardware and software products.

the final components

Here are the finished components I used, both hardware and software.

hardware

Here are the images of the 3D printed components, includings downloadable STL files.

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For thorough documentation on how I made them, scroll to the process below. These were modeled in Fusion360, sliced in Ultimaker Cura, and printed by an Ender 3 Pro. Downloadable STL file links on the way. The links are broken, attempting to fix them!

                
                  //==============================================================================================================//
                  //--------------------------------------------- DEFINING VARIABLES ---------------------------------------------//

                  /*STEPPER MOTOR PINS AND CONTROLS*/
                  #define EN 8                  // enable end of stepper motor, active low
                  #define X_DIR 5               // x-axis stepper motor direction control --> feeding mechanism
                  #define Y_DIR 6               // y-axis stepper motor direction control --> bending mechanism
                  #define Z_DIR 7               // z-axis stepper motor direction control --> NOT necessary for 2D wirebender
                  #define X_STP 2               // x-axis step control ---------------------> feeding mechanism
                  #define Y_STP 3               // y-axis step control ---------------------> bending mechanism
                  #define Z_STP 4               // z-axis step control  --------------------> NOT necessary for 2D wirebender

                  /*CONVERTING BETWEEN STEPS AND REAL-WORLD MEASUREMENTS*/
                  #define STEPS_PER_DEGREE 0.8 // number of steps per one degree (calibrated during test runs)
                  #define STEPS_PER_MM    8.62  // number of steps per one millimeter (calibrated during test runs)

                  //---------------------------------------------- HELPER FUNCTIONS ----------------------------------------------//

                  // low-level step control
                  void step(boolean dir, byte dirPin, byte stepperPin, int steps) {
                    digitalWrite(dirPin, dir);
                    delay(50);
                    for (int i = 0; i < steps; i++) {
                      digitalWrite(stepperPin, HIGH);
                      delayMicroseconds(8000);
                      digitalWrite(stepperPin, LOW);
                      delayMicroseconds(8000);
                    }
                  }

                  // BEND FUNCTION: bend the wire a certain angle in ONE direction (single pin on wirebender)
                  void bend(int angle) {
                    step(false, Y_DIR, Y_STP, angle * STEPS_PER_DEGREE);
                    step(true, Y_DIR, Y_STP, angle * STEPS_PER_DEGREE);
                    delay(50);
                  }

                  // FEED FUNCTION: feed the wire a certain length forward into the bending mechanism
                  void feed(int len) {
                    step(false, X_DIR, X_STP, len * STEPS_PER_MM);
                    delay(50);
                  }

                  // POLYGON FUNCTION: bend a 2-dimensional CONVEX polygon with a certain number of sides and a given side length
                  // CONVEX because single pin on wirebender
                  // NOTE: only produces REGULAR POLYGONS by definition
                  void polygon(int sides, int sidelen){
                    int angle = 360 / sides;
                    for(int i = 1; i <= sides; i++){
                      feed(sidelen);
                      bend(angle);
                      delay(50);
                    }
                  }

                  //-------------------------------------------- SETUP AND EXECUTION ---------------------------------------------//

                  // SETUP: Set the IO pins used by the stepper motor as outputs
                  void setup() {
                    pinMode(X_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode(X_STP, OUTPUT);
                    pinMode(Y_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode(Y_STP, OUTPUT);
                    // pinMode(Z_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode(Z_STP, OUTPUT);  // 3rd dimension, not necessary for 2D wirebender
                    pinMode(EN, OUTPUT);
                    digitalWrite(EN, LOW);
                  }


                  // MAIN LOOP: test polygons
                  void loop() {
                    //feed(100);
                    polygon(7, 30); // heptagon of side length 30 mm
                    delay(1000);
                  }
                  //==============================================================================================================//
                
              

For more info on how I made this, scroll to the process.

proposal 1 -- cars

My first proposal stemmed from an issue that I personally find myself in (well sort of), and one that I believe a lot of people also suffer from: being able to tell whether or not you will be able to fit your car into a given parking space. I see my dad constantly wasting a lot of time looking behind him to try to see if he could fit our car into a parking space. Sometimes, he decides he can't, and we drive off, many minutes wasted for potentially no reason. So I thought to myself: what if he didn't need to do that himself. And so, my first proposal was born: a device with a camera and sensor that you can plant on the back of the car that would be able to, given the car's dimensions and distance from a given parking space, whether or not your car could fit into the parking space in question. I quickly scrapped that idea, however, as I did not feel that it would be practical to build and code such a contraption to reliably (and consistently) work in 7 weeks at my skill level.

proposal 2 -- lamps

This next proposal involved something a little bit simpler: lamps. I really liked Harry Potter as a kid, and I had visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando a few years back. Butterbeer may have been the tastiest part of the trip, but the wands that could be used to control various lights and aspects of the park were certainly the coolest. So, I thought: why not do the same with the lights in a house? And so, my next proposal was to wire a circuit that could communicate with the lights in a house, and with various gestures of a wand with a signal sender, receive that signal and perform a variety of tasks, such as turning the lights on or off, toggling the brightness, and even the color.

proposal 2.5 -- useless box

This wasn't really a "new" proposal to replace the previous one, as I was tossing around a few ideas at once. I really like the idea of "useless boxes", ie boxes where, if you push a button or flip a switch, a little hand or figurine will pop out of the box to do nothing but push the button again or flip the switch back to neutral position. Many have made these types of boxes, and some have even created skits with these boxes, where they coded the box's reaction to "evolve" the more times the button was pressed or the switch was flipped. This is where I came up with another proposal as a slight modification to the useless box: a useless box with facial expressions (made from LEDs) that evolve to a more angry state the more the button/switch is pushed/flipped, as the box gets progressively more "annoyed" at the individual.

finalizing the proposal

After sitting on it for a few weeks, I finally decided between the two proposals I was working with, though I did add in a slight modification to it.

After also consulting my mom following the lab, I also considered potentially including an option to toggle speakers to play music, though this is still only a theory, and I will only implement it if time permits.

sudden developments: a last-minute modification

While working through the class 10 assignment, I was struck with a new idea for a final project, one that was so mesmerizing that I decided to completely scrap my original final project idea in favor of this new one. I decided to work instead with wirebending. After a lot of consideration, I finally decided to scrap the initial proposal in favor of a complete rework of my final project.

This modification to the proposal came, again, as a result of class 10's assignment that I was working on, which involved a 2D wirebending mechanism. More information and thorough documentation can be found in the class 10 tab above. This was also approved by each of the instructors, and they liked this new proposal, and found the video demonstration I linked on my page of an example 3D wirebender "very mesmerizing". While such a last-minute change did sound very troublesome, I found that as long as I built off the results of the class 10 assignment, I would rather easily be able to abstract to a 3rd dimension of motion.

the initial plans

Here, I post my initial and rather general plans for the entire project. They each get slightly more detailed, but are still fairly general.

draft 1

This was the very first plan I drafted after the proposal was finalized. It contains rudementary explanations of what I planned on doing with the project, and how it would work.

The plan is simple: Have an IR LED send a signal that would be reflected by a wand into one of 4 phototransistors, each responsible for one action (turning on the lights, turning them off, increasing the brightness, and decreasing the brightness). These would send a signal to the lamp(s), making them do what you'd like. It also lists what I need, and what I've acquired already. Finally, I included a crude basic design for a possible case for the mechanism (for prettying purposes), and the functions I'd need to define. I would make edits later, after some discussion with Nathan and Victoria on how to make only some of the lamps perform certain tasks.

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This was the first plan, and the second one gets a little more detailed and more specific. I add on to the proposal after discussion during the breakout rooms, but here was the rough first draft. It included a very basic plan.

Even though these plans were great and I had a lot of ideas about this project, I felt that scrapping it for the new proposal was ultimately the right decision, as it is something that I would be prouder of and something that I would be able to use more for fun and something that would be quite fun to play with.

class 10's assignment: 2d wirebender

To start out, I needed to get the 2D wirebending mechanism to work. This entire final project proposal was inspired by my class 10 assignment, which involved developing a 2D wirebending mechanism with 2 stepper motors and a few 3D printed parts. As soon as I knew I could get this mechanism to work, I knew 'upgrading' to 3 dimensions would not involve that much extra work.

the wirebending mechanism

The second step was designing the actual wirebending mechanism. I started with the simplest 2-dimensional one, to truly understand how to create a wirebender. This mechanism would receive a wire fed from the wirefeeding mechanism, which would then bend the wire at given points, depending on the parameters specified in the code that would supplement the hardware. Thorough documentation of the manufacturing process can (again) be found in the class 10 page linked above, but I still have a demonstration of the results below.

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the results

Here are the results produced with this wirebending mechanism. This goes hand-in-hand with the wirefeeding mechanism, and I can now successfully code it to work remotely and bend whatever shapes I like, so long as they are 2-dimensional.

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With this complete, the wirebending part of this system was complete, and they could be put together and coded to work.

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This mechanism could now be put together with the rest of the system to produce the full wirebending system.

With that work out of the way, the class 10 assignment, otherwise known as the 2D wirebending system, was complete. This now allowed me to bend wire into any 2-dimensional shape I liked. I needed now to take this one step further, so that I could create 3-dimensional shapes.

transitioning to 3d wirebending

The last bit that remained for this project was to upgrade this system to move in a 3rd dimension. This would be the final step, and as soon as I figured out how to do this, I would be able to proceed with building and completing this project. This involves a third stepper motor that would be able to move the 2D wirebending part in order to add another dimension of motion. Below, I have my plans for creating that 3rd dimension.

While I wasn't able to get the whole 3-dimensional bender to work for the final project, I was very excited to see how I could finish it off on my own after the course ended, as were all of my instructors. Thus, even though the 3D bender won't be a complete version of my final project, it is definitely something that I was going to pursue on my own time after the course had ended.

the hardware

Here, I detail everything regarding the hardware. Since I had everything planned out, I was ready to start experimenting with how the hardware will come together and work to bend wires in 3 dimensions. I used Fusion360 for the modeling, Ultimaker Cura for the file slicing, and an Ender 3 Pro 3D printer for the printing.

the final plans

Here are all of the final plans that I would use to create the models, program, and assemble the rest of the project.

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With all of these plans complete, I was able to now apply those blueprints and create the necessary models in Fusion360 that could then be sliced by Cura and printed by the Ender 3 Pro. I would also now know exactly what to program for the stepper motors, so I would be able to program the bending mechanism to work once I could assemble the hardware.

As soon as the hardware was complete, I was able focus more of my attention on completing the software aspect, though I was working on both of them sort-of simultaneously. This hardware, though, was certainly the most time-consuming aspect, with the planning, modeling, printing, remodeling, reprinting, and assembly.

the software

Here, I detail everything regarding the software. Since I had everything planned out (just like with the hardware), I was redy to start experimenting with how the software will power the existing hardware and culminate in a 3D wirebending mechanism that can create any 3D shape out of wires that I want (and that are possible). This software, while not as time-consuming as the hardware, was definitely the more technical aspect of the project. All of this code would be completed in Arduino.

                
                  #define EN 8      // Enable end of stepper motor, active low
                  #define X_DIR 5   // X axis stepper motor direction control
                  #define Y_DIR 6   // Y axis stepper motor direction control
                  #define Z_DIR 7   // Z axis step motor direction control
                  #define X_STP 2   // X axis step control
                  #define Y_STP 3   // Y axis step control
                  #define Z_STP 4  // Z axis step control

                  void step(boolean dir, byte dirPin, byte stepperPin, int steps) {
                    digitalWrite(dirPin, dir);
                    delay(50);
                    for (int i = 0; i < steps; i++) {
                      digitalWrite(stepperPin, HIGH);
                      delayMicroseconds(800);
                      digitalWrite(stepperPin, LOW);
                      delayMicroseconds(800);
                    }
                  }

                  void setup() {// Set the IO pins used by the stepper motor as outputs
                    pinMode(X_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode(X_STP, OUTPUT);
                    pinMode(Y_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode(Y_STP, OUTPUT);
                    // pinMode(Z_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode(Z_STP, OUTPUT);
                    pinMode(EN, OUTPUT);
                    digitalWrite(EN, LOW);
                  }

                  void loop() {
                    step(false, X_DIR, X_STP, 100);       // X axis motor reverses 1 turn, 200 steps is one turn
                    step(false, Y_DIR, Y_STP, 50);        // Y axis motor Reverse 1 turn, 50 steps are one turn
                    step(true, Y_DIR, Y_STP, 50);         // Y axis motor forward 1 turn, 50 steps is a turn
                    // step(false, Z_DIR, Z_STP, 200);    // Z axis motor reverses 1 turn, 200 steps is one turn
                    delay(1000);
                    // step(true, X_DIR, X_STP, 200);     // X axis motor forward 1 turn, 200 steps for one turn
                    // step(true, Z_DIR, Z_STP, 200);     // Z axis motor forward 1 turn, 200 steps is one turn
                    delay(1000);
                  }
                
              

                
                  #define STEPS_PER_DEGREE 0.8 // number of steps per one degree (calibrated during test runs)
                  #define STEPS_PER_MM    8.62  // number of steps per one millimeter (calibrated during test runs)

                  step(false, Y_DIR, Y_STP, angle * STEPS_PER_DEGREE);
                
              

As soon as the software was completed, I was able to focus on bringing the hardware and the software together into a finished version of the final project. The hardware needed to more-or-less exist when I started finalizing the software, even though I had worked on them sort-of simultaneously.

putting it all together

As soon as I got the hardware and the software to work, I was ready to put it all together to create a working version of my project. The hardest parts were over, so I was ready to get started with finishing everything up. The assembly was quite fun, and the results can be seen in the demo above, as well as an image linkeed below.

With the building complete, it was time to create the demo video and prepare for the presentation of this project.

introduction

This section detais what I worked on (and learned) with class 12, held on 30 July, 2020. This is the final class for instruction, and we worked mostly on the final project here, so the page lives here for simplicity, as explained below.

wildcard class: miscellaneous topics

This class was treated as a "wildcard" class, as it was really meant to wrap up instruction for this course. A variety of topics were covered, all way too much for me to condense onto a simple documentation site, so all can be found on Nathan's and Rob's pages. These were quite interesting and fun to see, and while it's a shame that we did not get to these during the class, it's fun to see what could've been and fun to see how much more there is left to learn and discover in this world.

assignment/breakout rooms: final project work

The "assignment" for this final class was to keep working on the final project, which was also done during the breakout rooms. All documentation regarding what I did in preparation for this final project can be found anywhere in this Final Project page.

the demo video

Here I have everything pertaining to planning out, preparing for, filming, and editing the demo video that can be found above. This is meant to serve as a very brief demonstration of my final project, what it does, and some highlights regarding how it works/ how I put it together.

Overall, it was a fun process to make this video, as it was really all window dressing at this point. I still liked the results, and they can be seen both on YouTube (unlisted video, link with the video above) as well as here (above with the demonstration section).

the presentation

It was also important to plan out exactly how I was going to spend the 5 minutes I had to show off my final project and everything I could regarding it, so this is exactly where all of that information lives. The recordings for the presentation (as well as everyone else's presentation) can be found here (broken link). I wanted to show off the demo video, and then take some time to delve into each aspect shown in the video (which would essentially cover the bulk of the process, excluding all of the excruciating hours and lost brain cells), leaving about a minute for personal reflection and Q&A. I wanted to demonstrate my utmost interest in the course and the project with that presentation, and given my years in debate, I'm happy to say I was able to come up with a basic outline for that presentation and deliver it how I wanted to.