Final Blog Post

Since many children at the Child Study Center don't wash their hands properly, we decided to create a hand washing aide. It consists of a pressure sensor, a light-up sign depicting the different steps of the hand washing process, and rotating hands. When a child steps on the floor sensor, the picture of the first step, rolling up one's sleeves, is lit up. After 5 seconds, the next picture lights up, and so on. When the scrubbing step is reached, motorized hands begin to rotate, mimicking the scrubbing motion. After the last step, the child has five seconds to step off the mat before the process restarts.

Timeline of Our Project

Week 1

We gave a short presentation in class of our two project ideas, the heart timer and the hand washing aide. We chose to work on the hand washing aide. 

Week 2

We came up with a detailed plan for our project and presented our proposal to Becky. We used her questions and concerns to revise our plan. 

Week 3 

We chose and ordered our materials and worked on foamcore rotating hands and an LED circuit. 

Week 4

We soldered the music shield but then ran into problems with it, the LEDs, and the Velostat. We presented a very rough prototype to Becky at the KSC.

Week 5

We got our Velostat and LEDs working, decided to give up on the music maker, built our mat and sign, and added finishing touches, 

Pictures and Videos of Our Final Product

Conclusion

I really liked our final design. We initially thought using the box was less than ideal, but now I think it's pretty nifty. The Arduino, batteries, and wires are stashed away inside, protecting them from water splashes. When the batteries die, the teacher can simply remove the lid and replace them. Overall, I think the design looks very well put together and it's hard to tell that we created it from random(ish) things we found around the lab. We were really bummed that we didn't have time to get the music maker working, but we made a lot of progress in the final week, and the product is still useful as is. If we had more time, we could work on the music, but the music shield adds $35 to the product cost and might not be worth it. If we had more time, it'd be interesting to work on a way to hang the box on the wall so that it would still be easy for the teacher to remove and replace the batteries.