Inspiration
One of our team members, Humberto Torralba, likes to bead hat bands but it is very time-consuming. He came up with the idea to leverage hardware and software to speed up the process.
What it does
We developed a program that decrypts bead designs (in .png) and communicates the information to an Arduino-controlled machine that will load a needle with specific colored beads in a specific order. This is the Bead Image Processor or BIP for short.
How we built it
We designed an Arduino-controlled machine that utilizes 2 stepper motors and 20 threads of beads that receives Serial input from a USB-connected machine. For example, if the Arduino-controlled machine receives the input "AABBCC", it will load 2 beads from the first (A) bucket, 2 beads from the second (B) bucket, and finally 2 beads from the third (C) bucket. The master machine sends a string of data every time the spacebar is clicked.
Challenges we ran into
Serial communication between the Arduino and master machine was tough as we had never done it before. We also do not currently have the stepper motors as they have still not been shipped to us.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were able to successfully apply our skills in electronics and software development given our limited expertise.
What we learned
We learned how to program in a time-sensitive environment
What's next for the BIP
After receiving the stepper motors, we plan to create this machine and put it to use!
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