Back from Break by msheh Posted on February 6, 2012 We have come back from a great Winter Break and are ready to get to work again. A lot of parts came in last week. Above, there is an image of EL ribbon. This is good to use because it is flat and gives a better visualization; however, using this would mean a lot of connections because the ribbon cannot be manipulated into different shapes. Many connections would probably cause the physical therapy device to take up more space, which is not something that we want. The above two images are of the 3.7 V battery pack that arrived. It is very thin and rechargeable through the next image. These parts are very good because they are very small and thin. We are currently working on a circuit to power the EL wire/ribbon with this battery. The image below shows the microcontroller which is also very small. This is good because it can easily be hidden. We are working on a circuit with this as well. Currently, I am working on an EL wire/ribbon design on a panel of fabric so that we can test different visualizations. We also tested the last iterations with the flex sensor and the data that we received was unpredictable and did not have any trends. The flex sensor was not reliable because it had too many spots where it could experience resistance. One of the students in our lab who has worked in industrial design suggested that we use a neoprene flex sensor which we had been looking at. So we will try that and hopefully get better readings. We are also thinking of designs for our poster submission for Grace Hopper. This entry was posted in Miranda's Blog. Bookmark the permalink.
We have come back from a great Winter Break and are ready to get to work again. A lot of parts came in last week. Above, there is an image of EL ribbon. This is good to use because it is flat and gives a better visualization; however, using this would mean a lot of connections because the ribbon cannot be manipulated into different shapes. Many connections would probably cause the physical therapy device to take up more space, which is not something that we want. 
The above two images are of the 3.7 V battery pack that arrived. It is very thin and rechargeable through the next image. These parts are very good because they are very small and thin. We are currently working on a circuit to power the EL wire/ribbon with this battery.
The image below shows the microcontroller which is also very small. This is good because it can easily be hidden. We are working on a circuit with this as well.
Currently, I am working on an EL wire/ribbon design on a panel of fabric so that we can test different visualizations. We also tested the last iterations with the flex sensor and the data that we received was unpredictable and did not have any trends. The flex sensor was not reliable because it had too many spots where it could experience resistance. One of the students in our lab who has worked in industrial design suggested that we use a neoprene flex sensor which we had been looking at. So we will try that and hopefully get better readings. We are also thinking of designs for our poster submission for Grace Hopper.
