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Background/Inspiration

For my last semester at Moorpark College, I wanted to combine my understanding of C++, 3D modeling, printing, and optics that I had learned. With that I came up with the idea of creating a kaleidoscope that can be controlled through an app, via bluetooth. I was able to accomplish this using Adafruit Bluefruit LE Connect and the rest of parts I used are listed below. Once the project was finished, any RGB solid colors can be picked and I also programmed four different patterns that the user can pick. 

Design/ Sketches (Add hand sketches)

Materials

  1. Adafruit Bluefruit LE (link)

  2. NeoPixel Jewel (link)

  3. Adafruit Mini 3.3V Lipo (link)

  4. Mini-B USB Jack (link)

  5. Kaleidoscope Making Kit (link)

  6. PLA

Challenges

The biggest difficultly that I came across with this project was trying to keep this device as compact as possible. Starting with the electrical components, I designed and soldered the circuit as small as I possibly could. Then proceeded to measure the dimensions using calipers. Once the electrical compartment was finished, the threads on both ends were also a challenge. To achieve clean results I tested, printing speeds from 40-60mm/s and temperatures ranging from 175-205 degrees Celsius. With these experiments, I found that printing speeds at 50mm/s with a nozzle temperature of 205 degree Celsius was optimal. 

 

 

Results (Add more pictures of Hardware)

Improvements

After completing this project there are three things that I would improve on are weight distribution and rotation angles.

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1. Since all the jewels and electrical components are located on the rear end of the device, the device feels heavier when held. Although this is not significant enough to cause any hardware damage, but if I was to redo this project I would add some weight in the front just to evenly distribute the weight making the device feel overall less awkward to hold.  

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2. The design only allows for a rotation of 180 degrees in both directions, ideally I would want to come up with a design that allows for a complete 360 rotation. 

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