- Building the “box” the map will sit in. I am still unsure whether I want the map to be horizontal, vertical, or at an angle, but am leaning toward an angle for design purposes. I haven’t worked much with power tools so I am sure this portion of my project will be a definite challenge for me. I am hoping to get input from my teammates on how to best execute this.
- Getting the buttons to work/light up. I have never worked with electronics, wiring, saturing, arduino etc. so this is a whole new field for me. I have some friends I believe that will greatly help me out in this process, but I will need to set aside a significant amount of time to get this portion of my project figured out. It is also this part of my design that is crucial to both making it dynamic and performing a function.
- Materials. I am still trying to figure out what materials I will use that will align with my concept/aesthetic and what type of plastic will work best for the lighting effect I am trying to create. I hope the materials will be easily accessible and not too pricey.
- Time. I have a very busy schedule and I have other projects I will be working on during the time of the creation of this project and am afraid I will run out of time or not schedule enough time for me to get the project done to the quality I want it to get done. I need to leave room for things going wrong or me having to rework the design.
- Cost. I am not too worried about the cost because I am used to spending a lot of money for my own major. I know this probably won’t be the cheapest project, but I am determined to make it something I am proud of and is of good craft. This means I will buy more expensive materials if that means it will come out a clean, finished project. I would rather not go crazy with the cost of this project though.
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Elyse, we can chat about how you can go about making the box for you project work. As far as 3D printing materials go, PLA is generally an easier material to print with no past experience on 3D printers. If you plan on printing in the ITL, you should make sure you purchase 3mm diameter filament. There are transparent filaments on the market (I know Hatchbox makes some cool ones) that would work really well for diffusing light through the plastic prints. 3D printers also generally print with “Infill” where it fills the inside of the print at various densities and patterns, but a lot of the time you can print the part completely hollow as to get a more uniform light diffusion across the print.
The lights, buttons, and switches will be a fairly straight forward circuit that you could run off of an Arduino Uno. Arduino Unos are a cheap, straightforward, and incredibly well documented microcontroller that would be perfect for the functionality that you are looking to create.
I’m excited to follow your progress and see how it turns out!