The past few weeks have been really busy with school and research. Since school just ended, I ended up taking a lot of time out to study for finals and such. I’ll have more time though now that it’s the summer.

In the past few weeks, I created a very, very simple website that simply holds the information. I don’t have enough knowledge to make it look good yet though. I’ve also been practicing a lot with android. I’ve gotten a lot better at understanding how to develop with android as well as how to understand code. Even so, we agreed to make the main interface of the device web-based.

Miranda created a design with the EL wire with the neoprene so I’ve been soldering the cut EL wires lately. This takes a lot of time since I have to strip the two outer layers off and solder the two tiny wires inside. It’s been a bit tedious as the tiny wires are very fragile and break easily. Miranda’s going to be gone in the next two weeks though so we’ll be focusing more on circuits.

We made a stretch sensor that we need to test as well. Our advisor, Swamy, researched different ways to measure the bend in the knee so we need to choose which one will work. He gave me a paper to read about how to place two flex sensors back to back in order to get a more accurate reading.

In the future, I will be testing the flex and recording it to see what is more consistent. In the meantime, we’re developing tools for the prototype. Our circuit to light up two different EL wires works now so we just need to add more.

-Alice