Digital Technology Summer Fellows 2021

Hi everyone, my name is Karla Gonzalez. For my project I am creating a voice control dispenser for those who are visually impaired; This way they can control the quantity they would like to measure from the dispenser only using a voice command. This would allow the process of measuring substances to be quicker and easier in the kitchen. As the daughter of someone who is visually impaired, I know that a device such as this one could immensely become handy. I will be designing a dispenser for solids such as rice and flour. My stretch goal is to create a dispenser that can handle liquids such as oil. During this first week, I solidified the plan for the next few weeks and compiled a list of resources to use. These resources include introductory courses and tutorials to familiarize myself with the software end of the project. I went through a couple of sources because some courses required payment to continue after a certain extent of the course. Apart from planning and compiling, I dedicated this week to familiarize myself with the idea of voice design. Voice design is the process of creating and brainstorming all the possible occurrences between a voice assistant and the user to have the most natural conversation. In this instance, I brainstormed different ways the user could ask the voice assistant to dispense x amount of solid and possible measurement units. I also considered different forms that the user can ask for a measurement: weight, unit (mg, g, etc.), cups, etc. More specifically, I will be utilizing an Amazon Alexa. This week I have completed half of the Alexa tutorial provided by Amazon titled Build an Engaging Alexa Skill. Using an Alexa is the most convenient voice assistant to utilize because Alexa can easily adapt unique skills that the user decides to implement. Additionally, Amazon provides many free courses and access to several products for developers. So far the most important basics that I have learned is the breakdown of a user command. Given an example of “Alexa, ask Daily Horoscopes for the Aquarius horoscope,” this can be broken down into mini parts. “Alexa” is the wake word that starts the conversation with Alexa. “Daily Horoscope” is the invocation name which is part where the user sets the innovation name of the skill. “for the Aquarius horoscope” is the intent of what the user wants out of the skill, which here is to find the specified horoscope. Lastly, “Aquarius” is the slot that is dependent on the user’s request and customized information. This means that the user could have asked for the “Pisces horoscope,” which relies on the user specification. I implemented into the skill from the tutorial ways to create unique slots. In the tutorial, they wanted to create slots for the day, month, and year when a user gives their birthday. This section also covered situational problems, where the user can give 2 out of the three slots. Meaning they could give only the day and year. I have yet to implement a situation where the user says “my birthday was yesterday.” Last note on the tutorial so far, I am working on dialog conversation between the Alexa and user, where there is back and forth. Below is an image for a sample of interaction with Alexa so far. Next, I will wrap up this tutorial and begin to implement the skill for this project, and choose a dispenser design.

Hi. My name is Angel Vergara. My project for these eight weeks is a simple sorter meant to show all the minutia involved for doing basic things on the computer’s side, by having it sort blocks that we expect kindergartners to sort like it was second nature.

At the beginning of the week, I was not entirely sure of several aspects of my project, mainly how the sorter would move, but I know have a much clearer plan of what I am building.

On Monday, we started with an exercise to practice designing, my group had to construct a mousetrap powered vehicle. We ended up making more of a wind powered vehicle which turned out what the other team had to make. We then moved on to brainstorming what we would need.

I decided to focus on moving differently sized blocks with a magnet to simplify the demonstration for the audience. The magnet came about to avoid having the claw worry about the different sizes of the blocks. The blocks themselves should be trivial to make, between the simplicity of the model and my colleagues experience with 3d-printing. Another early concern was how the crane would position itself, but between the contact, magnetic, and ultrasonic sensors we have on hand, that should not be much of an issue.

The block we had that is acting as a stand in for the soon to be printed blocks

In terms of moving the blocks, I considered a few different mechanisms: a robotic arm, shifting plates under the blocks, a gantry crane, and a standard crane. The shifting plates lost out quickly due to its complexity and the standard crane felt much to unstable. The arm ended being either too expensive or would take too long too arrive. So, the gantry system won by being the only one that would be feasible for an eight week project.

Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly spent on the above mechanism issue, securing/ordering the parts, and determining a schedule for the next two weeks.

Thursday was spent on learning how to work with the Arduino in basic ways, this was made easier thanks to the Arduino community having a gigantic amount of tutorials and test code for most of the devices I was practicing with. I ended up making a few semi-original things: a rotary dial that controlled four lights, a button that swapped the text of a 16×2 display, and a button that turns on a light then fades it and makes another stay on. I say semi-original because while I did these on my own, someone else has certainly done something identical to these.

Finally, Friday was spent working on this very post and learning about copyright, fair use and creative commons licenses. I also spent some more time working with the Arduino and getting some of the parts we ordered ready. I got to use a soldering Iron, which was pretty cool, though I may have damaged what I was soldering and I misaligned some pins, but otherwise it was really fun.

The bent pins in the center interfere with he rest of the board

Also, some parts I ordered arrived on Friday, so with that and some spares we have in the lab, I should be equipped for the at least the next week or two.

Next week, the plan is to make a very simple version of the sorter, my goal is to just have it pickup and move a block across a single axis, not necessarily to an exact spot, though I guess that would be a stretch goal for that week.

Digital Technology Summer Fellows 2021

First Week – Intro

Week 1: An Introduction