This week was the second week of Junior year but technically the first week of this blog. We started this week with a day off on Monday due to Labor Day so progress wasn't as much as it could've been but still progress has been made. I started this week by picking up where I left off from last school year by finally finishing my paper lantern project.
Last year I managed to design my whole box, cut out the paper, cut the acrylic, cut the wood, glue the wood, stain the wood, and create a rough circuit of what the actual circuit would be so basically everything but the finalized electronics. Unfortunately if I wanted to keep my project I would have to buy my own parts for the project and because it was the end of the year by the time my parts arrived it would be summer. So that meant I couldn't complete my project until Junior year began. So I waited and waited and finally the school year began and I sprung right back on my project.
I got my parts and soldered up all the electronics together which included the LED, LED driver, toggle switch, and battery lead. I'd also noticed that the paper cutouts had all started to brown for some reason so over the course of the week I spray painted them white and waited for them to dry to prevent any future browning. I'd also run into another problem with my project as the LED had noticeably gotten dimmer from the start of the week. I thought the problem was the power source but it had nothing to do with it but I haven't noticed any further dimming and I slightly prefer it this way so I've left it alone. Below is a picture of the final product turned on and in the dark.
The rest of my week has been consumed by designing this website and creating my blog post. I haven't done any other work on other projects yet but I'll definitely think of something soon. Technically this project isn't finished because I ordered a cloche dome to put on the top which will protect the paper and improve its general aesthetic in my opinion. Until then however I will be updating this site and brainstorming a new project and hopefully I will have made some progress on that for next weeks blog post.
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