KUWTP Ep. 7 | 24th June 2024 | Shopping + Prototyping + Tinkering in Autodesk Fusion
Monday Blues? Who’s she! We started the week off with a bang and chased the Monday blues away with a productive day doing MnT. Our day-long discussion kicked off with our favourite activity – Shopping! However, instead of browsing the catalogue on Shopee or Lazada, we browsed and scrutinised the catalogue of boards and circuit components on Digikey (not sponsored). Comparing different prices and analysing the operating conditions of the components proved to be a tedious yet important task as we did not want to exceed our budget nor did we want to purchase a component with specifications unsuited for our project. For example, when purchasing our load cells, we ensured that the operating force fell within 50kg as too high or low an operating force (e.g. 200kg used for human weighing scales) would result in less reliable results.
After our shopping session concluded and we finished reeling over the hole in our wallet (who knew these tiny electrical components would cost us a bomb!), we got started prototyping with cardboard boxes. This was an important step for us to decide on the measurements of our final product and after much back and forth, we settled on the following dimensions as shown in the picture below. Having a hands-on prototyping session also helped us visualise how our product would look like and the key dimensions we needed to note, which would be helpful when we start sketching in Autodesk Fusion. A notable moment would be how we all sat on the ground and used the cardboard boxes as a makeshift table while discussing instead of using the readily available table in the lounge (see first picture of this post)! #sitonfloorbetter
Before retiring for the day and heading for dinner, we refreshed our memory and skills in Autodesk Fusion by creating a 3D prototype to be printed. We only sketched out the base of the BIA scale, or as we dubbed it the “lunchbox” since it functions similarly to a lunchbox – holding food (circuit) inside. For the platform on which the dog would be standing on, we decided to go with acquiring a solid plank of wood instead of 3D printing out a rectangular board as we fear that a 3D printed plastic board would bend under the weight on a dog and thus cause the weight reading to be inaccurate. This ties back to the title of today’s episode of KUWTP, inspired by a trend on Tiktok (a social media application) where a content creator posts animations of Little John renovating his house with eco-friendly wood veneers and galvanised steel squares (see picture below).
To end the day, we took a trip out of NTU to get dinner at Jurong Point (we eat shihlin chicken way too often, once again not sponsored…) to reward ourselves for accomplishing so many things today! As the only people in hall and of course being notoriously loud, a hilarious incident that happened after we retired for the night was that sichen heard anna refilling her bottle and called out to her, to which teresa heard the entire conversation from inside her room so she came out to say hi too HAHAHAHA. See the pictures below for our little conversation across levels!
