This week in SEED, we make tiny adjustments and decisions that affect our project massively. We choose a final solution, CAD some enclosures, play with cameras and mirrors, and blow up some capacitors. There are huge wins, massive setbacks, and for the first time, wildly varying present and past tense!

We start by taking our two final solutions, a Multicam box and Moving Camera Track, and judging between them. We write out pros, cons, cost, and benefits of each. After using our third full whiteboard and deliberating carefully, we decide … MULTICAM. This fabulous solution captures the full personality of the foot using several distinct images. It is truly a wonderful solution, the best in fact.

With our new solution in hand, we head to the laser cutter to build a testing rig. This wooden box lets us test different camera locations and mirror angles. Jeremy (our TA) told me off for not testing the rig in Solidworks before cutting it, but I got it right on the first try. We tested our two different cameras, the short-range endoscope and the versatile PiCam V2. Here we switched our design a bit so the camera reflects off a mirror before capturing the foot. This does some magical adjustment to let us get more of the foot with one camera! We also ordered three (!) new webcams to test with as well.

 

As a side project this week, I designed the power supply for our project. The lights to illuminate the feet need 12V, but the computer and cameras run at 5V, oh no! To convert from 12V to 5V, I used a USB car charger, super cheap! Jeremy told me I couldn’t run it without breaking it, but I took one apart and charged my phone with it! Later I soldered it to a perfboard to make the real power supply, and when we turned it on, it exploded. Jeremy may have been right just this one time.

On the last day, we made some fancy rigs to hold the mirror, camera, and foot plate in place. This is one of the ugliest prototypes of all time, but it works like a charm. We found the perfect dimensions for our box, and we are ready to cut it again, with real mirror reflection action!