Project Development
Overview
Welcome back ! This is unfortunately the last blog for CP5070 Chemical Product Design & Development. Overall, this has been an interesting and enjoyable journey as I am able to pick up new skills such as Arduino Programming, using the Laser Cutter and also 3D Printing. Through these design process, I get to broaden my eyesight and come across different software such as Fusion 360 where I get to unleash my creativity and create anything and everything that I want. With that being said, this week's blog focus would be on our project development.
Chemical Device
My group's chemical device is none other than the Self-Sterilizing Door Handle. For our device, it uses UV Light as the source of disinfectant. Just for some background there are about approximately about 5.85 Million Covid-19 deaths across the world as of 17/2/22 and this number is inevitably, going to continue to rise.
We believe that having a self-sanitizing door handle can reduce the risk of people getting transmitted through this indirect mode of transmission as door handles have frequent hand contact.
Here is a hand sketch of our chemical product
Figure 1: Sketch of Chemical Product
Team planning, allocation and execution
My team members are :
Nikkisha (CFO)
Jia Yu (COO)
Benjamin (CSO)
Myself (CEO)
Gnatt Chart
Design & Build Process
Part 1: Door Handle (Benjamin)
Step 1: Create a shape as follow
Step 2: Smooth the edges using the "Fillet" function
Step 3: Import the design from Fusion into Cura by converting the file into a STL file and obtain our final Product
Fun Fact: The entire process of 3D Printing took about 3 hours !
Part 2: Door (Me)
Step 1: Make a rectangle of 20 cm Length and 30 cm Breadth
Step 2: Make a small box of 1 cm x 1.1 cm and is 0.5 cm away from the breadth
Step 3: Add a text box at the top and put "Garage Engineers". This is the engraving for our door.
Step 4: Convert the file into DXF and Import it into CorelDRAW for it to be laser cut
Finished Product:
For laser cutting, the entire process took less than 5 minutes !
Part 3: Arduino Component (Me & Nikkisha)
Step 1: Use Tinkercad to experiment with the different components that we need. Below is the final product that we have achieved
Step 2: Copy the code that is provided by Tinkercad and insert it into the official Arduino Program
Step 3: Bring the digital version of the Arduino setup as shown in Step 1 out into the real world by following and inserting the different components in our real life Arduino Board.
Fun Fact: The entire process took about 1 to 2 days !
Part 4: Integration of Parts (Me & Nikkisha)
Step 1: Insert the Arduino component from Part 3, into an empty box. Use double-sided tape to ensure that the components do not move and get damaged
Step 2: Make a hole in the box to allow the IR Sensor to be able to sense the door handle and another hole for the LED, which is our replacement for UV Light
Step 3: Insert the door handle through the small square hole that we made earlier and use double-sided tape to stick the box onto the Door (Acrylic Sheet). Now, we have our final product !
Embed Files
Door handle:
Arduino (Tinkercad):
Door:
Problem: For the first problem, picture on left shows our initial circuit box that we modelled in Fusion 360. We have added holes as inlets for the wiring, Arduino Infrared Sensor and the LED and also a cover with a sliding mechanism to cover up the circuits and wirings for aesthetic purposes. However, after importing to Cura, we realized it would take 12 hours even after changing the printing speed and infill and therefore, we were unable to proceed with this circuit box.
Solution: Therefore, we used an empty container that we found at home and manually cut the holes instead.
Problem: Our initial plan, for the motor servo to spray disinfectant onto the door handle 4 seconds after detecting motion. Our first problem was that the first servo motor that was provided from the school was not strong enough to push down the nozzle.
Solution: We bought a servo motor with a higher torque to be strong enough to push down the nozzle and dispense the disinfectant.
Problem #3
Problem: After getting our hands on the new servo motor however, Arduino coding was limited such that it only moves when movement is detected and the servo motor will only move back to its original position when the IR sensor is not activated which is not what we wanted.
We wanted it to move and move back in one direction after detecting motion.
With this limitation, it would only work if the initial position of the spray is when it is being pressed.
This ensures that the user’s hand will not get sprayed. However with this method, it was almost impossible to achieve and the nozzle kept turning to undesired directions. We also tried using wires instead which was inspired by the unicorn practical but to no avail.
Solution: Thus, after much research, we found out that UV light also has anti microbial properties and decided to add it to our prototype.
Reflection
Although we encountered difficulties, we were able to come up with other ways and improvised to solve the problem.
Throughout the journey of making this product, we managed to use the skills we have learnt from CP5065 and CP5070.
For example, when we were creating the door handle, we applied the skills of using Fusion 360. By using Fusion 360, we managed to sketch out our desired product.
Additionally, the skills from 3D Printing is very important as we had to adjust the setting to the correct size and print the handle.
Moreover, understanding Arduino is also something important when we were trying to control the LED.
Finally, we managed to apply our skills learnt from laser cutting and CORELdraw to sketch out the door frame and engrave our group’s name as our signature.
Overall, we had a lot of fun working and experimenting with the product. We feel that these skills are very useful not only in school, but in the future as well.
They enable us to create complex designs or products in a short amount of time as compared to the olden days.
Now, people are even experimenting with 3D Printed Organs. We believe that these skills are essential in the near future.
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