Device Prototyping Process Blog

Playing Around to Prototyping

For this project, we used some prototyping devices called Little Bits. Given the devices, we were given time to play around with them and get to know how they work. We were also given small problems to solve by making product prototypes out of them. When I was assigned to my project group, she had already practiced working with sound detection, so we incorporated that into our project by solving the “fussy baby” problem. To solve our problem, we used a sound detector, an MP3 player, and a speaker. We had our prototype output soothing music when the sound detector received noise input.

Reflection

I didn’t run into much trouble during this project. The devices were very easy to use, and the problems were pretty simple. My partner and I came up with solutions very easily and chose a solution based on prior experience. If I could do this project again, I would probably choose a more complex problem to solve so that I could explore more of the capabilities of Little Bits, and come up with the best possible solution, incorporating many different pieces.

Where Could You See This Being Applied in Your Future?

Before doing this project, I thought that electronic prototyping would be really challenging and confusing. After some exposure to it, I found that it isn’t very hard to comprehend the concepts, and I think the knowledge I gained in this project can be applied to working manually with circuits in the future. I also have some basic knowledge of programming, so I hope that in the future I can make a working device doing the electronics and programming by myself.