My kit of no parts
As a CMD student I think that sharing knowledge is important. For me, this means that I can share my process and way of thinking with others to inspire them. I only do it if there is a demand because I can share it with people who find it interesting. It is interesting and educational for me to see in a project how someone's way of thinking is and how the person came up with an idea. Sometimes I think it's a shame that things are only held for the designer.
If I get stuck in my work process and cannot continue, I sometimes ask others to share their process with me. If something is completely new to me and nobody within my circle can help, I sometimes watch a tutorial on YouTube. Furthermore, I do not ask further if I do not understand. If I want to know something very specific, I ask Reddit where people are very helpful. I once asked Reddit a question about JavaScript, unfortunately I was unable to get help with that at the time, but on the other hand it was nice to know that I was not the only one with that problem.
I find it difficult to transfer technology in a didactic way to someone else, especially if the person does not know anything about the subject.
Nowadays you have a kit for almost everything you want to make. Do you want to learn how to program with sensors and actuators and you can order an Arduino kit and get started. This is an example of a kit. With a kit without parts you will look for alternative ways to create, share and collaborate. In that regard, I often have a "fuck it" mentality. I easily let go of ideas that I had before and then "I'll see" what I come up with. In my project during Emerging Technologies, this resulted in a great product.
Hacking
When are you a hacker? If you interrupt a certain process and do something else with it. Hacking does not always have to do with coding and programming. When you search for images on Google for "hacker" it seems to be put down negatively, someone with a mask on in a dark room behind a computer doing something with code.
On my 14th birthday I got a Playstation Portable (PSP), a year ago when I found it again, I hacked it by watching a tutorial on YouTube. I recently did the same with an old Wii that I got. For years no games have been made for this and they are almost impossible to find. By hacking both of them, I can download games and transfer them via USB. In this process there was also a "fuck it" mentality, there were so many ways that this could go wrong and these consoles could be thrown away in the trash. Still I started to try and see what I would end up with (Getting lost ) and yet again it worked out well.
The last time I've worked with circuits was more than 10 years ago when I was in middle school. In the beginning it was just as difficult to pick up again because I used to have a lot of trouble with this, but now I understood it better than then in middel school and it all made a lot more sense. I don't know if that was because I am a little older now or if this was poorly explained to me in the past.
I liked making the speakers but at the same time frustrating to do. At first I didn't know it was possible to do it that way. I enjoyed soldering and I hadn't done that for at least 10 years, but it was still as good as back in the days. The frustrating part for me was sewing. I did not had any experience in it and I've made a lot of beginners mistakes that i had to solve the hard way. The speaker was working but the sound was very low. If I had sewn over it again the sound would be better to hear.
In this assignment i've created a soft speaker on a piece of denim. I've solded a mono amplifier with a jack connector that is connected to the soft speaker. For the best audio results i should have a resistance between 4 and 8 ohm.
I did this together with Summer.
In this case the blue wire is + and the orange wire is -. We wrapped some tape on eacht wire and wrote + and -. The + (blue wire) should be soldered on the short side of the jack plug and the - (orange wire) on the long side of the jack plug.
I've soldered the pins on the bottom from the amplifier. With these pins we will provide power and amplify the sound from the speaker.
For connecting the speakers to the amplifier, make sure to solder the part (with the two screws on top) with the two holes pointing on the outside of the amplifier. Connect the two crocodile wires with the amplifier by stripping the coating (5mm will do), stick each in a hole and secure them with a screwdriver on the topside.
The amplifier is done for now and i'll continue with the denim after the recessweek.
For the design of the speakers we wanted to use a piece of denim. We will lasercut a square (10cm x 10cm) and inside the square we are going to sew the coil that is also a square but turned 45 degrees.
The coil that I am going to make will be made of steel conductive wire
Beforehand I did not measure exactly how much resistance the wire had because I wanted to solve it later. I wasn't sure yet how many centimers i actually need.
IIn Illustrator I made a design for laser cutting on a piece of denim. I have experience with the laser cutter, but since it was my first time to do this on a piece of denim, I asked a supervisor from the Makerslab if it was possible.
There was no preset for denim on the lasercutter and it worked out by using the presets from cotton. Because this was a preset i do not know what the actual settings are for lasercutting cotton and denim.
Make sure to save the file as an Illustrator 8 file for lasercutting.
The link for the Illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VxzwrsgKnVtR5iwDGME11UZh4vQVc9_9/view?usp=sharing
I've marked the outline with red and the inside where the coil is going to be black. I did this because the lasercutter will cut out the red lines and the black lines are going to be dotted.
I have setted the dotted line 4mm apart from eachother.
Now I will embroider the pattern with the thread that will guide the current. In the beginning I often had to look back at the design so that I would not get stuck in the wrong place.
This was the hardest and most frustrating part for me because I stabbed myself in my fingers a few times, sometimes, I was tied up a few times and also broke the thread a couple of times, so I had to pull the thread through the entire denim again that I had enough thread to continue sewing.
Now I am going to see with a multimeter how much ohm it will indicate. For the assignment I want to be between 4 and 8 ohm.
The multimeter indicates 64.6 ohms. That is too much resistance and I have to think of a way to solve this so that it has less resistance. Loes Bogers told me that if I made the wires thicker, it could conduct more current, so that the resistance would also be lower. Instead of taking the whole thread out and starting over with a thikker thread i'm going to sew a new layer of thread on top of the current one. It might work but I don't know for sure yet.
This went much faster because I only had to follow the first thread. When I was completely done again I tested it again with a multimeter to see how much ohm it would indicate.
With the 2nd layer that I have embroidered, the multimeter indicates 15.7 ohms. My plan worked out and this would also be enough to be able to hear something if I connect it to the amplifier and hold it above a cup according to Kai.
I connected the denim with the amplifier and tested with magnets if I could hear music. Connect the crododile wires from the amplifier with the thread on the denim. Do that on the two sides where you've cut the thread on the denim. Connect the jack plug to a telephone of laptop with music and make sure to turn the volume all the way up.
It worked and there was music, you could only hear it if you keep your ear next to the cup.
I did not manage to get between 4 and 8 ohms for the assignment. I didn't have enough time to embroider a third layer on the denim. Hereby the resistance would be lower because the wire is thicker and provide more current so the music coud be heard louder.
An application as wearable for a soft speaker could be in a beanie. You wear it on your head and the music is played in your ears.
Ohm's law is a formula that establishes the relationship between voltage current and resistance. The formula is Voltage (V) = current (I) x resistance (R). If you want to know the current for example than the formula would be V : R = I. This is the same for resistance except you have to divide the voltage with the current.
In this assignment i want to light a LED on paper by using some copper tape, resistance and a 3 Volt battery.
It is important to know from the LED that the long pin is + and the short - and to connect it the right way otherwise it wont light up.
I started first to stick the copper tape where needed from + to -.
Then i sticked the resistance on the right place with some copper tape on top of each pins. Here it is important to put the pins on top of the copper tape that are on the paper and on top of the pins some new copper tape so its stuck. The sticky side from the copper tape is not conductive.
Then i sticked the LED pins in the copper tape the same way as i did for the resistance. Making sure that the + and the - where on the right side.
And now i've used the 3V battery and put it with the + side on top in the circle with the -. I folded the corner from the paper so the piece of copper tape inside the cirle with the + will touch the + side of the battery.
Now i want to measure some data with the multimeter, it is the first time i use one.
First thing i want to measure is the voltage of the battery. I allready know it is 3V because of the package but i want to see it for my own curiosity.
Now i want to measure the resistance. There were a few resistances i could choose but i didn't know wich one i had and how many ohm's it has. After measuring i discovered i had a resistance from 47 ohm.
Next thing i want to know is how many volts is going through the LED. That was somewhere around 2.8V
And after measuring how many voltage is going through the resistance i had to add it up to the voltage from the LED and that will be the same amount as the voltage from the battery.
The battery gives 3V from the + side, the resistance uses 0,2V and the LED uses 2,8 and 0V is going to the -. If i did not use any resistance there would be 0,2V returned to the battery and it could get really hot.