There are multiple projects described below…
- I have just started a really big project that has several small projects under its umbrella.
- I believe that some pieces of these small projects could be educational, fulfilling, and fun for you.
- There is also an unrelated little project that needs doing.
- Note that all of these could give you a significant advantage in being accepted into the college of your choice. Especially if the project you choose as a web presence.
Family Web Site
I am converting my feretich,com web site into a family web site. While doing that I am also upgrading it to modern web technology. When I created my feretich.com website, the internet was through a PC or Mac. Now 70% of web browsing is done on smart phones or tablets. The modern web technology alters how a web page is displayed to be viewed on large screens (PCs), small screens (tablets), and tiny screens (phones).
In this project, I will teach you to use WordPress and Elementor to create your own web pages and make them part of this website. With that knowledge, you would be able to:
- Add your web page collection to the family website.
- Use the knowledge you have obtained to create your own web sites. You can probably find a hosting service to let you have a starter package for free for 1-year. (I’m only using the free open-source tools for my web site creation, so there is no software that you have to buy either.)
- Maybe use these skills to get a summer job building web pages for small businesses in your neighborhood for a lot more money than walking dogs or twirling signs. (After some successful reviews, you can probably make more than baby sitters. (No changing dirty diapers or washing vomit out of the sofa and your clothes.)
It would defiantly be handy to create web sites for school clubs that you joined.
If you are interested in this project…
- Bring your PC, even a Chromebook can be used to create web sites.
- Choose an avatar for your image on the main Feretich.com web page. Ideally the image should be 350 pixels (px) wide by 330 pixels high. Check out feretich.com to see the avatars that I have already selected.
- Look at the images on the existing web pages. The big image at the top center of the page is called the “hero image”. Find a hero image that you like for your web page. The hero images on the current web pages are 1140 px by 800 px, so this needs to be an image close to that size. Bigger images are OK, we can shrink them, but small images will get very blurred, if we grow them too much.
- You may also want to find or create a “Logo” image, a small 350 px by 300 px image to tag the top corners of your pages. Think of this similar to the Chinese chop stamp that was used to sign official documents.
Indium Logger (the big project)
- A friend and I have decided to continue a project that we suspended in 2023. The project was to build an advanced device to record what happens on rocket flights (mostly the kind that Alex and Blake viewed a few years ago – SpaceX needs more advanced stuff).
- The little projects under this big project are:
- Building remote-control panel for the logger Rocket_Logger.
- Building a Logger for the Rocket_Logger.
- Creating a new web pages for the projects. (This is why I learned WordPress and Elementor earlier this week.)
The below subprojects are things that we could start when you visit. For the hardware design projects, I may be able to fly you to San Jose to assemble the parts we designed over Thanksgiving holiday. (Fabrication of the printed circuit boards and acquisition of the parts will take several weeks.)
The Remote-Control Panel
- The remote-control hardware is a simple hardware project. We will design a very small printed circuit board.
- I plan to build several standard diameter rocket nosecones that will contain my new Rocket_Logger. The nosecones will be pre-assembled and sealed before going to the launch site. I need the remote-control panel that can be mounted on the bottom of the nosecone that we can turn the logger on and off; and look at the indicator lights to see if is running properly.
- The goal for your visit is to teach you how to use KiCAD to design a printed circuit board (PCB), and submit it for fabrication.
- Hopefully the parts will be ready by Thanksgiving to assemble and then we can test the board.
The benefit of this project is to learn KiCAD, a free circuit design tool and basic skills of designing your own circuit boards.
Logger for the Rocket_Logger
My Rocket_Logger failed on its last three flights. It started recording, then its software hung (think of the Microsoft Windows “Blue Screen of Death”) That happened many times while I was debugging my code. Whenever the Rocket_Logger code crashed during debug, just before it died, it printed a packet of important data (last words) to my debug console (attached via a cable to a serial port) that provided me enough information to find and fix the bug. These failures have occurred while it was in a rock, flying. Obviously, there is no way the serial port cable could travel into the sky with it.
The goal of this project is to design a tiny board that contains a tiny microcontroller that will record my Rocket_Logger’s last words, so I can solve the bug that is occurring.
For this project…
- The goal for your visit is to teach you how to use KiCAD to design a printed circuit board (PCB), and submit it for fabrication.
- Hopefully the parts will be ready by Thanksgiving to assemble and then we can test the board.
- This project will also require the microcontroller to be have a program that writes all of the data it is receiving to a non-volatile memory (FRAM) and be able to read it back later. This would require learning the ‘c’ computer language.
- Before Thanksgiving, the ‘c’ code would need to be written and simulated. Again we will be using freely available compilers and an interactive development environment (IDE). (Probably Microchip’s MPLAB-X.)
- The benefits of this project would be to learn everything covered by the Remote-Control Panel project plus how to make program a microcontroller to do useful stuff. This could lead to summer jobs that pay much bigger $$$.
- This project can not only add to your web presence, but also establish you as having your own “git-hub repository”. (The forum where open-source code developers publish their work.)
Robot Motor Characterization Board Assembly.
I needed to buy new higher voltage gear-motors for my upgraded robot. Now I need to “characterize” these motors, so my movement control algorithm can better predict “how a small voltage change to the motor will result in the change of angular velocity of the robot”. (It’s part of the “look ahead” component of the control feedback loop.)
I characterize my old motors using multiple voltage and current meters with alligator clipped jumper wires; and a few pages of noted readings in my engineering project notebook. This device would simplify the process and make it less prone to error. The board reads both applied voltages and current flowing through the motor many times per second. This device is sent back to the Robot Motion Controllers microcontroller through analog to digital (ADC) input ports. The microcontroller outputs a table of readings to my notebook PC. The data allows the PC to optimize the movement control algorithm.
OK. That was probably all Greek to you, but it provides important data, whose purpose you don’t understand, yet.
This project exists to enable collection of the necessary data in an automated manner. For this project…
- The first goal for your visit is to solder the components onto Motor Characterization Board. (It is a tiny board with about 30 surface mount devices (SMD) and two pin-through-hole connectors.
- I already have all the components and the custom PCBs. (printed circuit boards)
- Step 1: Is cover the PCB with a solder stencil and apply a thin layer of solder paste. Once the stencil is removed, all of the PCB pads for the SMD components should be covered with solder paste.
- Step 2: We will use anti-static tweezers to place the SMD components on the PCB. Their solder tabs will be sunk into the solder paste.
- Step 3:We will bake the assembled board in my Infrared oven for about seven minutes.
- After the board cools, we can remove the board from the oven and hand solder the two connectors. (Steps 1 through 3 should take about three hours.)
- If we have enough time we should try to test the board, However that would require me to setup my electronics lab and that would be difficult with people using my lab as a bedroom. So, we should probably say that this project ends at this point.
Conclusion
I would like each of you to send me an email telling me which projects you are interested in working on, in priority order.
I especially recommend the Family Web Site project as a #1 priority. Things learned from that are probably the most generally useful.
Knowing how to design a printed circuit board is also broadly applicable to many fields of science and industry. Note that you will not be an electrical engineer after this project, PCB design has become so generic that many hackers are able to build perfectly functional PCB projects.
The Logger for the Rocket_Logger project is the deepest dive, but would probably lead to the highest paying summer jobs in your college years.
Please let me know your preference Friday night so I can prepare.