My BSE Experience
In BSE I learned a lot more than I thought I would. It was somewhat hard at some points but the instructors helped me out. I had some troubles with my coding because it was a completely new field for me and its almost like I learned a whole new language. I thought that with the instructors help, the project became much easier. I am amazed with what some of the kids built, because some of them make daily life much easier. I know for me, my water dish filler will make my dog chores much easier. I came in only knowing a few engineering genre things but now I learned a lot that even my dad (mechanical engineer) didn’t learn until probably much later in his education. I definitely want to come back to this program next summer and expand my engineering knowledge.
Dog Water Dish Filler
I have finally finished my intensive project. It is a 3 foot long dog dish filler. It fills the bowl in just a few seconds and comprises of a 12 volt pump and a set of tubing. The pump takes water from the source of water and its fills the bowl. Once the 2 sensors that are in the bowl find that there is water, it tells the pump to stop. This project took me along time to finish because I had messed up a few times and had to debug A LOT. My circuit consists of a lot of screw ports, wires, resistors and diode. When I completed the circuit I had to finish my code. I took a long time to finish because I had never worked with code before and it took me a long time to figure out what I was doing with it. After the code and a series of test I had to now try and make sensors. The sensors I had to make were 2 wires that would send volts to each other. If they got the voltage, there is water because water is conductive. If they don’t, they tell the arduino and the arduino pumps water in. After I got my sensors working, I had to assemble the project and iterate to get the exact speed I wanted. I assembled the project using 3 pieces of wood and a bunch of screws. I then had to solder all the pieces of my circuit to a perfboard to make it permanent. It took a lot of debugging because I made a bunch of mistakes. And this project is pretty amazing if you ask me.
Here is a ZIP file with my schematic, BOM, and source code: MichaelL12 Docs
Here is my Final video for you guys to check it out:
My Light-Seeking Robot
When I started BlueStamp I thought it was going to be much harder because I thought there would be a lot of technology I would never understand. On the first day we started right away with our starter projects, I already knew how to solder so I thought it was going much easier and I would be done within the first day. I had made a few mistakes with the starter project and thought that I was never going to be able to fix it. I learned how to fix it and it works. It seeks light slowly with its engines and moves toward the light. In my first week of BSE I learned a lot about technology and was able to fix a lot of problems I created. Here is my robot:
Michael’s Bau5 Light-seeking Robot
For my starter project I wanted to build an awesome light-seeking robot. I had some sensitivity issues and one of my motors was kind of lame but I got it working.
Here is the video:
ENJOY! 