Press-fit construction / Laser Cutter assignment by Daniel Collado

In order to create my press-fit construction I tried to make some brainstorming and come up with specifications for the design:

• It should be something not too complicated (keep it simple)
• It should be something useful, not only for fun
• I’d like to mix different materials with different properties (bendable, rigid, opaque, transparent, etc.)
• I’d like to include some simple design features (fancy shapes maybe)

So I started thinking about which things I could create with those specifications, and I decided to build a simple showcase (well as we’ll see after it won’t be as simple as expected).

The idea of creating a showcase comes from the time I used to paint tabletop games miniatures, and I wanted something to keep them visible on my shelves, but safe from dust and whatever dirt could get on them.

Then I came up with the first design (3mm plexiglas board and 1 mm transparent plastic), which outcome was not really good to be honest:

First Attempt

It had many errors, like:

• Miscalculations on dimensions
• Some of the pieces were too thin and broke
• The connections between pieces were loose, it wouldn’t hold the structure

First Attempt errors

That’s why I decided to make a second attempt, redesigning some parts and trying to fix those errors:

2nd design

2nd attempt2nd attempt detail

But even in this second attempt I had some problems with the connections between pieces (now they weren’t loose, however they couldn’t hold together the whole structure), and also the transparent material that had to be bended applied so much pressure on the structure, so I decided to make a third attemp with a thinner transparent material and redesigned joints:

3rd design

And it finally worked!

Final design

Final design side

The joints between the blue board and the transparent board fit perfectly, and the ones between the blue board almost perfectly, holding the structure. The only bad thing is that they’re not strong enough to avoid a little bending on the blue plexiglas, but after 3 attempts, I’m pretty satisfied.

CUI32 Individual assignment by Daniel Collado (peak detector)

For my CUI32 individual assignment I’ve decided to come up with a peak detector with some features:

• Displays temperature from 20 to 40 degrees ( each LED is one degree)
• If the temperature is stable (not changing) the LEDs remain green
• If the temperature is unstable (changing), the LEDs turn yellow
• The highest temperature displayed remains with a red LED
• If a new temperature peak is reached, the red LED is actualized to its new position and the speaker turns on for a second.

Code:

>   10 dim i, j
>   11 dim temp2
>   12 dim max
>   13 dim lasttemp
>   14 dim audio as pin rd1 for frequency output
>   20 dim cmd as byte, rsp[2] as byte
>   30 dim temp
>   40 dim leds[20] as byte
>   50 dim latch as pin rg9 for digital output open_drain
>   60 dim sync as pin rg6 for digital output open_drain
>   70 let latch = 0, sync = 0
>   71 let max = 0
>   72 let lasttemp = 1
>   80 while 1 do
>   81   let temp = rsp[0]
>   82   let temp2 = temp-20
>   83   print temp2
>   84   if temp2>max then
>   85     let max = temp2
>    86       let audio = 4000
>   87   else
>    88       let audio = 0
>    89     endif
>   90   let j = j+1
>  100   for i = 0 to leds#-1
>  101     if lasttemp==temp then
>  110       let leds[i] = 0x80+0x1*(i<=temp2%leds#)
>  111       let leds[max] = 0x80+0x4
>  113     else
>  114       let leds[i] = 0x80+0x5*(i<=temp2%leds#)
>  115       let leds[max] = 0x80+0x4
>  119     endif
>  120   next
>  130   qspi leds
>  140   let latch = 1, latch = 0
>  150   let cmd = 0
>  160   i2c start 0x48
>  170   i2c write cmd
>  180   i2c read rsp
>  190   i2c stop
>  191   let lasttemp = temp
>  230   sleep 300 ms
>  240 endwhile
> end

Concept video: