Final blog post :(
Now it is time for the beginning of the end of project 2. It has been an interesting and in many ways challenging project to make and a real challenge to have everything come together. The corona virus has forced us all to stay at home and work separated. This called for extra good planning and teamwork so that everybody stayed on the same page all the time. By making a flowchart from the beginning, everybody was working toward a common goal. Mostly we’ve been working in groups of 2 and made sure to keep everybody updated along the way. All our hard work will be presented and explained in the following video and blogpost. Please find your QR scanner on your phone and feel free to try the 7engineering SmartLocker yourself by scanning the following code:
Design concept
Initially, we explored some different shapes and forms for the design concept of the locker. We designed based on the principle that all lockers should be useful both as a single locker and as a module of many lockers.
After the basic shape-exploration, we based our final decision on three criteria:
Modularity. The locker must function both alone and with others.
Production cost. The locker should be fairly easy and cheap to produce and assemble, using the most common cutting processes, common materials and common assembly processes.
High adaptability of settings. The locker should function well both in private homes but also in ex. hotel rooms as a security deposit, by swimming pools with high humidity and low hygiene, by beach facilities with harsh weather and salty air, in malls, in schools, etc.
Modularity. The locker must function both alone and with others.
Production cost. The locker should be fairly easy and cheap to produce and assemble, using the most common cutting processes, common materials and common assembly processes.
High adaptability of settings. The locker should function well both in private homes but also in ex. hotel rooms as a security deposit, by swimming pools with high humidity and low hygiene, by beach facilities with harsh weather and salty air, in malls, in schools, etc.
We ended up choosing the design below, as it most successfully answered to our criteria, without being too ‘boring’.
Along with the design of locker, we wanted a logo and some colours that matched the design of the locker. As we wanted our lucky number “7” and a shape that would remind the user of a lock in some way, we ended up with the logo seen below. Along with this we wanted the colours in the dashboard to match the colours of the locker. With these criterias, our final dashboard appears as below.
Electrical circuit
The electrical circuit is powered with 12V from a universal adapter. The whole electric circuit is illustrated below:
Node-RED and Dashboard sumup
The Node-RED is made out of five flow tabs: Home, Sign-up, Login, Userpage and OLED data. They are all coded in order to make the UI experience nice and simple. When scanning the QR code for the locker, the user will be directed to the Home page for the locker. Here it is possible to either sign up or log in. Along with this, a buzzer and OLED screen is implemented in the design to fulfill the user experience.
The home tab is what welcomes the user to the app and shows the status of the locker. It consists of the 7Engineering logo and a choice between either signing up or logging in. This also shows the user whether the locker is free or occupied.
The sign-up tab is where a potential user can insert username, password and email-address to create an account. We have used a “mytimeout”-node along with a slide node to let the user choose for how many hours they will be using the locker. The triggy part here was to make sure that when the timer runs out the locker opens, LED goes from "red” to “green”, the OLED shifts from “Occupied” to “Available” and the user receives an E-mail telling them that their belongings are no longer safe.
The user will be denied signing up, if the locker is occupied. If the locker is free, the user will be prompted with a pop-up that confirms the reservation, sends a confirmation email and directs the user to the login tab.
The login tab is the gateway to use the app and works much in the same way as the sign-up tab, where the user needs to insert their credentials and then they will either be denied access due to wrong data or will be granted access and have an email sent, so the user knows that the access has now been granted, in case they are not the one accessing the locker.
The user tab is where the user can see the status of the locker, unlock it, see the current weather information, see how much time they have left of their reservation, sign out and delete their account and reservation. When unlocking, the user will receive an aural feedback. The weather information shown in this tab, is coming from the OLED data tab. The OLED data tab sends weather data to the NodeMCUs OLED screen, for the user and others to see, and as mentioned above it provides the same data for the app. A video of typical user experience of the app can be seen above.
CAD/Rendering
By doing the design in CAD we were able to create a visual representation of how the locker would end up looking. Furthermore a clip showing the exploded view and how the locker is put together was animated. In order to make a more visual and realistic presentation of the locker, we rendered some photos and short videos of the locker in 3ds Max With the design. The final result gives the user an idea of how their locker would look like in real life. Of course a real life prototype and presentation of the product would be the best way of showing the user scenario and user interface. That being said we are really satisfied with the end result and hopefully it will give the user a great idea of how their 7engineering SmartLocker looks like!
And if you want multiple lockers they can be stacked:
Prototyping
If we had the tools and machinery from Skylab available, we would have made the prototype by laser cutting a 6mm sheet of plywood using the following template.
After cutting the plywood, the assembly would be rather easy due to the finger joints and living hinges. The components would simply be screwed onto the plywood.
The group logo and the QR- code would be engraved into the wood, making it easy to access the app. To ensure easy access to the electronics on the prototype, we made the top lid so that it’s very easy to take off, and thereby access the electronics compartment. In a final version, this would have to be made differently, so that the electronics are not available to the standard user.
Goodbye Over and out. Thank you for reading - see you for our final project!