All posts by andrewgold

Assignments, CycleSafe, Projects, Uncategorized

CycleSafe

Team Members: Andrew and Emma 

What We’re Going To Do: We’re developing a cycling jacket that incorporates sensors and LEDs as brake lights and turn signals to eliminate the need for hand signals. Additional features may include pressure sensors to contact emergency services in case of an impact, and vibrators to provide directions. 

Concept Art:

  

Inspiration: We felt that hand signals made by cyclists are not always clear or visible to drivers. Wearing this jacket could greatly improve the safety of cyclists. 

Materials and Costs:

Fabric, Zippers, Velcro, Elastic, Seam Tape. Estimated cost: $90 

LEDs, Accelerometer, Battery, Arduino. Estimated cost: $150 

Steps/Timeline: We just ordered sample fabrics last week so we’re hoping they come in soon and will have a final fabric picked and ordered by next week. The technology has also been ordered. We hope to have a final muslin sample of the jacket completed by November 18th. The remaining time will be dedicated to completing the final jacket and testing.

Backup/Fallback: We are hoping to allow ourselves enough time for troubleshooting so that we will not need a backup/fallback plan. If this doesn’t happen to work we will create something less intensive than a full jacket and something that would be more like encased wire that you can put on over whatever you’re wearing (similar to what Jess suggested last week). 

Assignments, CycleSafe, Projects

Final Project Post

IMG_0297 Jacket1

DS501_poster  
2.) Describe what your project does and how it
works 
 
 Our CycleSafe jacket is geared towards
cyclists looking for a safer way to ride. The jacket is made out of a
comfortable, lightweight nylon ripstop. The sleeves are equipped with LED turn signals that can be controlled with a button located in a sleeve that the rider can insert his/her finger into. Another strip of LEDs is located in the back of the jacket and acts as a brake light controlled by an accelerometer. All computer parts are located in the right pocket of the jacket where they can be easily removed for charging.

 3.) What are your overall feelings on your project? Are you pleased, disappointed, etc.?
 

We’re quite happy with the outcome of the jacket. We wish we had a little more time to troubleshoot the electronics because the accelerometer could be better, and there seems to be an issue with the lights. Additionally, it would have been nice to sew in the circuits rather than have wires.


4.) How well did your project meet your original project description and goals?


 Our final jacket met our initial goals pretty well. It does exactly what we wanted it to do on the basic turn signal/brake level. 


 5.) What were the largest hurdles you encountered? How did you overcome these challenges?
 
From a design perspective one of the biggest challenges was working with athletic fabric. We haven’t had a lot of practice with working with stretchy material but it ended up being fine. On the technology end our biggest struggle was dealing with some difficult hardware components. Some of the components did not behave as advertised, and it was difficult to trouble shoot why.
 
6.) If you had more time, what would you do next? 
 
 If we had more time we would spend more time troubleshooting the electronics. We would also sew in the circuits rather than using wires. Additionally, we would like to add additional features like force sensors, and bluetooth integration for GPS directions.

Assignments, CycleSafe, Projects

Project Post 11/9

We have spent most of this week waiting for things to come in the mail so it has been a little anticlimactic. Without being able to see and feel fabric it’s hard to know the exact material we’ll want to use for the jacket. Because of this we ordered sample packs of Nylon, Ultrex, and Polartec Power Shield from a fabric supplier called Seattle Fabrics. Once those come in we’ll be able to make a pretty quick decision about what material we need to order.
We also ordered our materials on the electronic end. The Arduino Pro Mini and headers have arrived, and lights, and accelerometer should be here shortly. Also, We have already started writing the code for the computer.

Everything should be in by sometime next week so we’re excited to really get started building!

CycleSafe, Projects, Uncategorized

CycleSafe

Team Members: Andrew and Emma

What We’re Going To Do: We’re developing a cycling jacket that incorporates sensors and LEDs as brake lights and turn signals to eliminate the need for hand signals. Additional features may include pressure sensors to contact emergency services in case of an impact, and vibrators to provide directions.

  Inspiration: We felt that hand signals made by cyclists are not always clear or visible to drivers. Wearing this jacket could greatly improve the safety of cyclists.

Materials and Costs:

Fabric, Zippers, Velcro, Elastic, Seam Tape. Estimated cost: $90

LEDs, Accelerometer, Battery, Arduino. Estimated cost: $150

Steps/Timeline: We just ordered sample fabrics last week so we’re hoping they come in soon and will have a final fabric picked and ordered by next week. The technology has also been ordered. We hope to have a final muslin sample of the jacket completed by November 18th. The remaining time will be dedicated to completing the final jacket and testing.

Backup/Fallback: We are hoping to allow ourselves enough time for troubleshooting so that we will not need a backup/fallback plan. If this doesn’t happen to work we will create something less intensive than a full jacket and something that would be more like encased wire that you can put on over whatever you’re wearing (similar to what Jess suggested last week).

Concept Art:

 IMG_0136 IMG_0137

Assignments, CycleSafe, Projects, Uncategorized

Cycling Safety Jacket

Cycling is dangerous.  As a cyclist, it is difficult to command attention from drivers, and drivers often have a difficult time predicting what move cyclists are about to make. Hand signals are difficult to execute, and difficult for drivers to understand.

Our project looks to solve these issues by creating a jacket to be worn for cycling, that includes a brake-light and turn-signals that the wearer can operate quickly and easily to make drivers aware of their presence and future actions.

This project will be challenging from both a design and technical standpoint, but fortunately we have skill sets that complement each other. We believe the most challenging aspects to designing an interface that is lightweight and comfortable, and also easy to operate when on the go.

– Andrew & Emma

FullSizeRender

Uncategorized

Shoes for the Blind

The idea for my project is to create shoes for the blind that have an array of proximity sensors that can detect obstacles in front of them. The sensors would connect to vibrating pads in the wearers shoes. When obstacles appear, but pads would give the wearer a general sense of what lies in front of them. Challenges would include calibrating the proximity sensors and vibrators to actually make the device useful, as well as making a product slim and durable enough that it could be worn daily.

Assignments, Uncategorized

This Mobile Dialysis Machine Will Clean Your Blood on the Go

http://gizmodo.com/this-mobile-dialysis-machine-will-clean-your-blood-on-t-1638758181

This article is about the invention of a wearable dialysis machine for individuals who suffer from kidney disease. I found this article interesting because while it seems a lot of wearable technology is used to make life easier in fairly superficial ways, this technology uses wearable computing for medical purposes. While it is hard for me to assess the success of this project, it will hopefully give patients who suffer from kidney disease a lot more mobility and freedom.