Development phase

We started developing the circuit from the example and luckily were able to find all the components we needed in the donated electronics kit, saving us around $3 towards development costs. This is even luckier as otherwise we bought the glasses for $5, a microphone for $9.99, and a pack of battery connectors for $4.99, making the "total" cost $19.99, one penny short of the limit.

While trying to re-create the circuit from Instructables we tweaked the capacitors and resistors until it worked well with a 6v power source made from two 3V CR 2032 batteries.

After some hours of trial and error, were able to get the circuits lighting up to sound! Here is a video of our progress so far showing the varying light levels and 6v power source in action:

With the circuits working, we aim to bring the size down to fit on a single board. However, we have found some bugs/changes to be made in the final prototype:

• The 9v battery has better performance than the 6v supply, so this will be the power source of choice
• A variable resistor does not affect the circuit enough to accurately set sensitivity, so there will instead be a mechanical way to alter the angle of the microphones as needed.
• The LEDs are very directional, so these too will need to be adjustable to the viewers' comfort

Materials mostly ready & Friday meetup

Hi guys,

With just under 5 days left here's where we are at:

I've had some donations to our project from a friend (who gave us his whole electrical kit from when he was in college), and the nice guys at Letterbox games store who gave me some old microphones (large style, but maybe we can get parts from them) from Singstar for PS2.

This means we have nearly everything we need now, probably just need a soldering iron, circuit board (might not be needed), and soldering wire to start piecing it together, although we don't have many op-amps so we'll need to take care in testing the circuitry.

Are we all good to meet up Friday again at 4pm to discuss this, and figure out how we'll be assembling the parts?

In the mean time, here's an image of all the development materials we have, the total paid components would be only the LED + battery combo packs (at $2.97 each + tax), and the extra PC microphone (small black one, the small white one is broken from my closet, but I think the microphone piece will still work).

First draft of the sound sensing glasses

Here's the first draft of our idea we came up with in class today:

Name: Not sure yet, SoundSense?

1. What is it?
An attachment for glasses, or at least using the frame of a pair of glasses, to mount LED's on each side of the wearers head, which are then wired to microphones on each side of the head.

The microphones pick up sound levels, and depending on a sensitivity switch on the side, will change brightness for each LED respectively.

In order to only show sounds beside and behind the wearer, the microphone should also have a small cone to direct sound input from the sides and back.

2. How do we build it?
I think we can do this with some basic electric components, including 2 microphones, 2 LED's, some wires, and a variable resistor. We have some contacts who know electrical stuff that might be able to give us some insight into the circuitry.

We will also need to decide on battery size, I'm currently thinking two watch batteries on each side of the glasses might work, but I'm not sure how much power will be drawn by the microphone and LEDs.

Lastly, we need to make sure it looks good, so once we get the components working we can modify the design to make it more discrete.

3. How do we test it?
We should probably test it by using ear plugs, if it can alert us to nearby cars/trucks, or other loud noises behind and beside us, then it should be useful for people who are hard of hearing.

It should also avoid being too distracting

4. How do we market it?
I think we should expect this to be a successful product if it works, so maybe we should prepare some marking plan and basic advertising videos and material. Maybe we can help the world with this!

And finally, here's a kind of "first concept" sketch, very rough but showing the placement of important components:

We're all here! Brainstorming begins :D

Okay, so we're all here now, and at the moment our blog is hidden from others. We can discuss our idea freely here and keep a better record than verbal discussion.

Here's some really first-draft idea's I've had (feel free to add yours as posts or comments!):

1. New musical instrument: This could be something like a special synthesizer for portable music-making, maybe have some basic recording function as well. If this sounds good and is cheap enough then we could even sell them for real.

2. Portable light: Based on Nikola Tesla's wireless lightbulb, maybe we could make a powerful LED light that is wirelessly powered from a base unit (running on batteries). Could be useful for illuminating a scene at night?

3. Point-to-point communication: I guess this is kind of like a walkie talkie, but I was thinking if we make it directional then it can go further distances. Probably not a great idea.

Materials I have currently:

-$20 portable bluetooth powerful 3W speaker (brand new, so it uses our whole "bought" budget, and I'd really not want to take it apart). It's a few inches tall and wide.

-2x Wireless motion controllers (like Wii controllers), price when bought new at Princess Auto was $5, and they work a lot better than expected! (we can probably take these apart, but they're compact as-is and use semi-touchscreen buttons)

-An old/used Windows Mobile 6.1 PDA/phone, I can program software for this but can't see it used for much (aside from being a part of the synthesizer idea?), battery life is okay enough that it counts as portable. Free - Counts as found low-tech items, but I also don't want to take it apart.

-An old/used DOS laptop, I can program for this too but the battery is shot so it needs to stay plugged in at all times. Also counts as free low-tech, but again not something I'd like to take apart if we use it.

I'm thinking of checking out the dollar store and other "junk stores" downtown for the older tech stuff. Maybe we can even grab an old CRT TV and combine that into the synthesizer idea to make a visual aspect of the performance?

Other resources:

-My dad is pretty good at basic electric circuits (he taught this as part of the technology program in my school in England), he also has the knowledge of basic plastic moulding and wood and metal working.

-Two of my friends at work are qualified electricians, one is more into grid power and the other does electrical circuits, both are great at fabrication and fixing things

-A third friend/co-worker is good at tinkering with electrical circuits, and may be able to help us out too