Christina Holman | Design Blog

Since Prof. Banzaert has been away on maternity leave, I've been working a lot on expanding the presence of the Wellesley Engineering Laboratory and knowledge of the engineering options at Wellesley. I met two other students -- one of who was in my EXTD160 class last Spring (Sam Chin) and the other being a current certificate student (Elena Shaw) -- who are interested in expanding the engineering community here at Wellesley also. With the guidance of Dean Stephan, one of the few members of the engineering steering team, I am pushing forward on my many ideas -- especially the development of a organization for students' interested in engineering for  various levels and fields . This society will engage in field trips to seminars to outreach to conferences to workshops and professional development -- all in the good name of engineering! We have much more interest in the society than I expected and I cannot wait to get things started. My list of seminar topics and field trips i...

Second day of Lab 2 and the lab deadline has been extended to the next class period! Plenty of time to work out the kinks and whatnot of the project... Though, this is a step up from Lab 1. Following from last post's updates, we have sent the pan-tilt design to the Wellesley machinist (Larry Knowles) for his advice on what materials to use and how to construct it. Hopefully, he'll be available next week and we can finish it on Monday. Furthermore, I've use the resources I found to begin writing the code for both the infrared sensor, calibration of the sensor values and MATLAB translation (visualization). The YouTube video below is an in-depth tutorial of how to use a infrared sensor and real-time draw its data into a MATLAB axis. The connector for the sensor has been developed and, when the pan-tilt mechanism and the foam object is constructed, we can begin testing the code. I am eager to see how these servo motors work. I feel that I'll be seeing more of them in ...

We're Making a 3D Scanner! I don't know how we jumped from flashing LEDs to this project, but I have managed to be both excited and scared. Lab 2 requires us to rely quite a bit on our mechanics knowledge to design and build a pan-tilt project with two servo motors and an infrared sensor. Together, the mechanical object will collect dimensions of a foam-based letter and, then, use MATLAB to draw the 3D representation of the object. I have never worked with servo motors before but I have worked with MATLAB and sensor data. Again, with my partner Ashley, we will ensure that we do not fall behind on this project like the last one. (Plus, I am eager to see what I can do!) We already have a few ideas to pursue as well as a few concerns. Pan-tilt projects are relatively simple to design but building them is another story. I am not a MechE (mechanical engineer) and neither is my partner. However, we are both trained in the machine shop and can use our Wellesley resources to ...

After we resolved the minuscule problems affecting our progress on the lab, Ashley and I worked diligently to catch up and even worked over the weekend for a long period to complete both parts of the code. Part I: Four Modes with a Single Button We had designed the operations of the four modes to be switched between but we were still figuring out the "switching" mechanism on the Saturday before the due date. Many of the examples we had seen were too elaborate and we wanted a simple solution. We found one by using millis() , a pushCounter and debounce operations. Millis() is a way to keep track of time, without stopping the entire program (i.e. delay), and we can use it for comparisons between the current timespan and a set interval to form different flashstates. On the other hand, a "button state change detection" tutorial showed us how to count presses of a button and cycle through four states. However, many times the Arduino will read several button presses ...

For the second class of "Principles of Engineering," my partner and I began where we left off last class -- just beginning the second lab. Consisting of two parts, Lab 1 focuses on ensuring the students attain a certain level of familiarity with the ArduinoUNO's coding language and applying the board in an electrical circuit. Specifically, the first part asks us to generate a code where three LEDs experience four sets of light patterns with the use of a single button. My partner and I started off well: we wrote out what we wanted the code to do; broke the procedure into steps (stages); and sketched a draft of how to structure these stages -- coding-wise. We wrote out the entire code to, at least, try something out. We uploaded the code -- and nothing. And, so, the troubleshooting began. Simplifying the code and removing the last two stages to test out the "switching" mechanism did not have an effect. Removing the second stage did not have an effect....

Welcome Back! After a few weeks of break, I am finally back at Wellesley College and ready to take on a new academic year and have just finished the first week of sophomore year. I'm looking forward to diving into Olin's Principles of Engineering, abbreviated to PoE,   (ENGR2210) and Wellesley's Mathematics for the Sciences  in addition to ECON102, ARTH259 and HIST205. What's more, I am helping manage the Wellesley Engineering Laboratory (We-Lab) while the department chair is on leave by organizing seminars, aiding set-up of events (e.g. Engineering Night) and implementing regular "open house" activities. I am now also the program coordinator for the Office of Sustainability's Bike Share Program and a peer tutor for the Physics Department (as well as an individual tutor for ECON101.) Feel free to see me in the Help Room on Thursdays! Since working under Prof. Battat this summer in creating a multiplexed digitizer for dark matter detection, the project...