IRB and Second Prototype

Now that we have the first prototype done, our advisor has been working on getting IRB approval for our user study. We hope to write a paper for CHI using this study. He just finished IRB this week, so now we’re waiting for approval which could take about a week.

Since then, we’ve started working on the second prototype. We’ve cut out Neoprene and Miranda has done some sewing. I’ll also be sewing the EL wire panel again as well.  We might change a few things to make this second prototype better but it will be a back up in case the first one fails.

I re soldered some of the EL wire this week using copper tape. We’re hoping that with this method, the connection will be stronger so that it won’t break as easily as it did before. We’re also going to try to make the bend in the EL wire outside of the soldered connection so that there is less of a chance of it wearing down.

I’ve also been working on the circuit again this week. I’ve switched to using the Arduino Pro Mini board. I’ve written a tiny bit of code that will hopefully light up different a progress bar on the EL panel as the sensor bends. I have it working a bit with the sensor but I still need to tweak it and work on it a bit more to make it work perfectly. It’s simply using a bunch of if statements. Here’s what it looks like right now:

digitalWrite(rim_EL_Pin, HIGH);
  sensorValue = analogRead(analogPin);
  Serial.println(sensorValue);
  if(sensorValue < 400 && sensorValue > 300)
  {
    digitalWrite(bar1_EL_Pin, HIGH);
  }
  else if (sensorValue < 300 && sensorValue > 200)
  {
    digitalWrite(bar1_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar2_EL_Pin, HIGH);
  }
  else if (sensorValue < 200 && sensorValue > 100)
  {
    digitalWrite(bar1_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar2_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar3_EL_Pin, HIGH);
  }
  else if (sensorValue < 100 && sensorValue > 50)
  {
    digitalWrite(bar1_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar2_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar3_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar4_EL_Pin, HIGH);
  }
  else if (sensorValue < 300 && sensorValue > 200)
  {
    digitalWrite(bar1_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar2_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar3_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar4_EL_Pin, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(bar5_EL_Pin, HIGH);
  }

Obviously, I still need to change it a lot to make it better fitted with the prototype. I also need to check the circuit again since some things don’t seem to be lighting up.

I also need to put the circuit in Eagle as well. I’m not exactly sure how to use the program but we need a copy of the circuit besides simply on paper and in Swamy’ head. We also need to create a second board which I will be doing. Miranda and I will also be working on the final report to submit to CREU.

-Alice