Thursday, May 1, 2014

FInal Project

this project was really fun, but also very challenging. The first challenge, deciding what to do. So it took me awhile to think of what i wanted to do but i finally decided to go with an american flag that lights up. I was hoping to have a 1' frame and then for the white stripes i would have a board running across the frame so it would be a 1' from the actual board and underneath the board I would have the red lights that would then reflect of the running board and back onto the main board, that would then make for the red stripes. However after we connected everything we found that the 20 red LED's i had glowing were not strong enough to make it look cool. So we decided to not do the running boards and just paint the red stripes on, which in the end it still made it look cool.

the second challenge was figuring out what power source to use. In class you taught us how volts and amps are different, so i needed to figure out what of both i needed to be able to power all the lights with out destroying them. With the help of Deborah and Janel we figured out we would need atleaset 3-5 volts and more than 1.5 amps. luckily we bought a power cord which Janel awesomely cut and installed alligator clips so that I could just clip them onto the back of my board. other than that the project went fairly smooth. I really liked that I got to learn how to solder. it was really fun also to get some wood work in with the framing and cutting of my board.

I think i will do some work on the project still this summer to make it look a little better on my wall! My one regret is i didnt take the time because i was nervous to have it make some kind of noise. Like play the national anthem or Born in the USA.  I wouldn't say I ran into any other challenges although the project did take quite a bit longer than I thought it would.

Overall i really enjoyed the project, it was awesome to learn all the little things i would have never learned if i didnt take this class. I had a lot of fun, thanks for your patience Deb and Janel, I love you!

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