Daniella F.

Hi, my name is Daniella and I am a rising sophomore at the Ramaz Upper School. My main project is the voice-controlled robot. I chose this project because I am interested in learning about the inner workings of voice-controlled technology.

My experience at Bluestamp definitely furthered my interest in engineering. I now have experience in programming and both electrical and mechanical engineering. I learned to solder, how to use a breadboard, and so much more, but more importantly I learned how to solve problems. I have gained a lot from my time at Bluestamp.

Engineer

Daniella F.

Area of Interest

Electrical Engineering

School

Ramaz Upper School

Grade

Incoming Sophomore

Final Project

My main project is the voice-controlled robot. It moves forward, backwards, left and right. To complete this project I had to assemble the hardware, upload the code onto the robot, connected the robot to my phone, and created my own voice-controlled app. As a modification, I redesigned my app and programmed my robot to dance. While doing this project, I learned how to solder, use a breadboard, code, and make an app. I think my greatest challenge was learning how to code. It was like learning a whole new language from scratch, but I think that in the end I really learned a lot from the experience.

Documentation:

Code

Daniella’s-BOM

Second Milestone

My main project is the voice-controlled robot and I’ve just completed my second milestone, which was controlling my robot through my voice-controlled app. First I connected my robot to wifi. Then I had to download the app onto my android phone, but I couldn’t download it directly onto my phone because it was too big. So, I download the app onto my computer and then put it in my phone’s download file on my computer. However, when I went to look for the app in my downloads on my my phone, it wasn’t there. Eventually, I found it in a different file on my phone. Then, I uploaded my final code onto my nodemcu 8266. However, even once I had done that, when I tried to control my app from my phone one of my wheels on my robot would always go in the opposite direction. So, I switched the polarity on the wheel, and now I have a fully functioning, voice-controlled robot.

First Milestone

My main project is the voice-controlled robot and I’ve just completed my first milestone, which was getting my robot to move forward, left, right, and in reverse. So first, I started out learning how to use a breadboard and inserting all the wires into the correct places. Then, I had to assemble the car and connect the battery. Then, I connected my nodemcu ESP8266 to the computer and began learning how to code. At first, when I tried to upload my code, it wasn’t working so I replaced some of my wires and made sure my robot was plugged into the computer properly. When I finally got my code to upload, my car was still not running and I realised that one of my motor wires had disconnected. Once I had reconnected it, I attached my portable charger and taped everything down. Now my robot runs on its own. My next milestone will be to connect my robot to my phone. That is how I overcame my first milestone and now I am nearly halfway done with my main project.

Starter Project

My starter project is the mintyboost, which is a USB charger. I first started out with a circuit board and then soldered on different resistors to help speed it up and discern what type of charger is being plugged in. I then attached the ceramic capacitor which stabilizes the boost converter chip. After that I added the diode which makes sure that the energy is transferred in only one direction-from the batteries to the USB port. I also added in an IC socket that allows me to replace the chip if anything goes wrong, a power inductor that converts low voltages to high, and two electrolytic capacitors that help smooth both the input and output voltages and keep them stable. Then I connected the battery holder and inserted in the boost converter chip. Finally I added on the USB connecter and put it in a tin box. That is how I made my mintyboost and now I have the equivalent of my own portable charger.

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