This class's assignment was about mounting and using a motor in your project. As soon as I saw these motorized potentiometers from Sparkfun I knew I had this idea for an audio system that, if left alone, would always turn the music all the way up. It was like 2001 A Space Odyssey except HAL is a computer that really wants the music to be loud.
To start, I bought a bamboo utensil organizer from The Container Store. After talking with my Pcomp partner, we decided this idea could be our Pcomp midterm, and instead of a computer the musix box could be haunted by a ghost. With this idea in mind, I prototyped a control panel for the box.
It looks a little wonky because the laser cutter at the MakerSpace works a little differently than the one at ITP, but the idea was sound. So, I went ahead and tried to implement this in acrylic. It worked really well the first time, surprisingly. I was really worried in particular about the spacing of the holes for the screws that would attach the potentiometer, which were 120 mm apart, but everything was spaced correctly.
I spent a LONG time carefully sharpie-ing in all the etched in designs, because I forgot you could use the sharpie dry erase marker trick to do it quickly. Silly of me. I also taped some wires to come out of the "emergency off switch" button space so it looked like the button was torn out, which I thought was cute.
Once the motor was mounted and the design was done, I wanted to screw it into the container, but there really wasn't enough space in the corners to do it. So, I glued some wooden blocks in so I would have something to drill.
The circuit worked and moved the knob, but not incredibly well. After the video it started acting wonky (isn't that always the case?). The last thing I did was laser etch a little warning sign, which I screwed to the side of the box. Then it was done!
Comments? Questions? Concerns? Email me
here!