D-I-Y iPhone Projection Project

This blog focuses on the process in which we used to create our very own Do-It-Yourself iPhone projector. The goal was to create something MORE unique than already invented. We wanted a cost effective mechanism that would allow us and our friends (broke university students) to enjoy the movie theater experience from home, and ON A BUDGET! Created by Jessica, Chrysalene, and Erinn.

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Frozen! 

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The Final Product! Success!

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The process

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Our first successful projection attempt; still too small.

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The Fifth Meeting

Today we met to put the finishing touches on our projector. We decided not to include a sound amplifier, however, we included a special slot in the box so that a specialized speaker system may be connected. We installed a "sliding mechanism" so that the user may be able to adjust the focus point to their liking. We also finished up HTML customizing our blog. 

Overall we are extremely satisfied with how our project turned out and enjoyed the process of working together to get it done, despite the mechanical difficulties.  

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The Fourth Meeting

We used a larger shoe box and cut a hole in it for the magnifying glass and taped it to the outside. Then we used a piece of cardboard to make a stand and placed it at the very back, like we did with the first box. The image was able to focus on a wall at a larger size.

We discovered that the magnifying glass has two focal points: 1) How far the phone is from the glass and 2) How far away the projector is from the wall. So we determined that the closer the phone is to the glass, the larger but less focused the image is. The farther away from the glass, the clearer but smaller the image is. So if we stand farther away from the wall but move the phone a little closer, it balances it out so the image comes out clearer and larger. 

We then made a little stand out of cardboard and placed the original purple box in the new box (it fit perfectly inside), and the stand sits inside the purple box. The stand can slide forward and backward, with the purple box keeping it in line with the glass. 

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The Third Meeting

We took apart the projector and tested the placement of the iPhone in relation to the magnifying glass to focus its projection. We decided that the iPhone had to be placed at the back of the box in order to get a clear projection onto the wall.

At last the projector worked and we managed to get a very small (but larger than an iPhone screen) projection onto the wall of a dark room. However, we were still unsatisfied with the size of the image on the wall. We want the projector to be larger as one could use it  to project Netflix movies, or even photographs. 

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The Second Meeting

We began to build our project at this meeting. Here is a list of the materials we used:

- Tape

- shoe box

- magnifying glass

- scissors 

- paperclips

- iPhones (one for projection, one to take pictures of the process)

we cut out a whole in a shoe box and taped a magnifying glass to it.  After this we made a stand for the smart phone screen to stand on.  We needed to find a good distance away from the magnifying glass to put the stand where the smart phone would go.  We ran into difficulties here, we were at a location where there was sunlight and could not find a space to project the projector so we could test the distance for the smart phone stand.  Also we figured we might need a bigger box to fit everything into. We continued to take pictures and make notes to log the creation process. We agreed on our next meeting and made sure this time would be a pace where we can control the light so we can test the projector.  It was a successful meeting in all.  

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The First Meeting

Our first group meeting was today, we brainstormed ideas for our project using pinterest.com and google.ca to uncover some inspiration.  After much brainstorming, we decided to make an iPhone projector. However, we wanted to make it better and more unique, so we decided the projector will also have a speaker amplifier.  We decided to use the blog site www.Tumblr.com and to up this account.  To close the meeting we decided when our next meeting would be, and decided who would bring what materials.