The Week in Review

Sorry for the delay between posts. I was struck by a perfect storm of bad internet connectivity and the final stages of jet lag. I think I’ve got the latter straightened out (finally), but I have no control over the former. At any rate, my first full week of work has had its ups and downs. I started off with some difficulty, since I needed to find an appropriate motor and encoder set to start designing my device. These sort of parts are everywhere in the US, and you can pick them up online everywhere. However, in Thailand, this is apparently not the case. Online dealers still exist, but with a limited selection. Even so, finding what you’re looking for, at least for a farang like me, is nigh impossible, since everything’s in Thai. The grad students in my lab, who seem to accumulate technical junk by the boxful, kept pushing parts on me that they thought might work. After about two days of tedious searching, and wandering around to panhandle for parts at other labs, I eventually found what I was looking for.

With parts in hand, I could actually start designing. But first, a short digression..

WARNING: NERD CONTENT AHEAD!

I don’t remember if I mentioned it before, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have the internet to check right now (I’m typing this in word), but I don’t think I ever actually explained what it is I’m trying to make. In short, I’m building a one degree of freedom haptic interface. In long, this is basically a little sliding piece that moves back and forth as one pushes on it. The slider is connected to a DC motor via a belt, and an encoder is in turn connected to the motor to record the rotational position, which can be read by a computer. The goal is that the slider will be able to slide up to a predetermined point (programmed in the computer), and then the motor will not be allowed to turn. This allows the user to “push” on an invisible virtual obstacle as if it were really there. I don’t know if that made any sense, but I’ll press onward

Anyway, once I had parts, I could start designing. I spent the next few days drawing a 3D model using Solidworks design software. Not much to report on this. Sat still a lot, mouse hand got sore, butt fell asleep. Once that was completed, the junk hording grad student pulled out a printer carcass he had lying around, and it was immediately clear that it would be way easier for me to modify this old printer than to try and fabricate everything from scratch. About 20 minutes of tinkering later, I had the skeleton for my device done.

That’s a short summary of my actual job for the week, but the week was by no means limited to the events described herein. The rest of the time gets its own post, which I’ll put together right now, though no promises when it’ll get posted. Please address all complaint letters to the KMUTT IT people.