E2: Speaker on Parakeets’ Poop Detector
Following the analog 3D prototype of my parakeet poop detector, this digital model is the speaker that attaches itself to the body sensor for muscle contraction on the front of the bird that will make a sound when the product detects contractions. This also pings the owner where the droppings are located. The parakeet owner is also benefitting from the speaker on the shirt because they will be able to track the amount, time, and location of the dropping as the speaker would sound and send a notification to the owner’s phone.
The 3D speaker model was sketched out before the idea was taken to OnShape for the modeling portion. Originally, there were a few iterations of what the front of the speaker would look like. For example, my top two sketches were speakers with a hole in the middle with a “subwoofer”-look but it would be 2 centimeters of all sides and the other with a gridded dome extruding from the cube.
The issue I had with transferring iterations of my sketched onto OnShape was that I had a difficult time creating anything that had a dome-shape figure extruding from a box. Adapting to my lack of knowledge on OnShape, I adapted my design to one of my sketches that did not have a dome. The 3D model represents the speaker as a cone-shaped hole that would amplify the noise like a megaphone. In addition to where the noise would come from, I’ve created two smaller holes on the top and bottom that would where the speaker would clip onto the parakeet shirt. This decision was made after considering how an owner would clean the parakeet shirt with a speaker permanently attached to the shirt. Due to the electronics that would go into a speaker, it would not be machine-washable. A quick-fix for this is to make the speaker detachable.
Reflection
After finishing this project and critique sessions, I would definitely go back to OnShape and watch more tutorials on how to achieve different shapes with new techniques that I have not learned yet. This week, I spent less time consider what my prototype would look like and did a very limited amount of iterations before moving onto creating the digital model. I would take more time with the sketching process so I have a better idea of what I wanted to do before using a program that I am not familiar with and creating an idea that I did not solidify as much as my analog model. Since it was a continuation of my analog model, I lacked the effort at the beginning to create a clear idea. I put more time on OnShape to learn how I can navigate through the software than actually making the model itself.
OnShape Link: https://washington-hcde.onshape.com/documents/2c9ec1493204efced4397077/w/e04a022aa296758582075f5a/e/15448c97ac3ab266cfadf371