For week 10, we began by finalizing the design so that we can order the parts for Tom.Alex began to iterate and finalize the design for the head tilt and head turn including the torso function.She consulted with Tim and also worked on finalizing the parts that need to be ordered. She also designed and finalized the custom parts to be ordered from ProtoLabs and worked with the team from ProtoLabs to get the order in.

                                               TOM’S MECHANICAL DESIGN

                               DESIGN OF CUSTOM PART TO BE ORDERED 

Raisa worked on iterating making important decisions regarding the scepter design.  She began creating the design in solidworks and also consulted with Tim to iterate and improve the design to make the movements look more natural.

                                                    SCEPTER DESIGN PROTOTYPE

         

Niharika continued working on iterating and improving the UI trying to make it more intuitive for naive users. She also play tested different prototypes with students from the ETC as well as naive users on play test day to get an idea about how intuitive is the existing UI and also how to make it more intuitive.

   UI DESIGN PROTOTYPES

Josh continued working on designing the electrical panel and ensuring all the safety measures that need to be taken for Tom when he is functioning. Josh also had a meeting with our client to let them know the measures that they need to take for the install and also work with their technical team to prepare for setting up the equipment.

Atul continued to program the Dynamixel servo motors, ensuring that the dynamixels follow the protocol and are compatible with the show controller. He also worked on figuring out how to set the limits for the motors and how to ensure the motors perform and function in the way we desire.

Dustin continued to modify the script. He also recorded scratch audio for the dialogues which can be used to animate Tom and visualize how his multiple functions will work together.Also we had play-test day this week where ETC invites naive guests which are in different age groups so that we can play-test with them. Since our target demographics are for 8-10, 10-15 for the show and for the User interface it is from 17-80 we had different groups come in for play-test. We began by playtesting our show content with kids ensuring that they like the jokes and testing whether kids are reluctant to dance or like the dance party. Therefore our play tests were successful and kids liked the jokes and majority of the kids loved to dance.

Please have a look at one of the recordings for our playtest session with kids.

Apart from the show content our play test for the User interface with the adult groups helped us in getting more information about the intuitiveness for the UI and helped us in finalizing our design mock up and flow of the UI which will then use later to built on and implement the show content after making few design changes.

 

Categories: Weekly Blog