Adafruit LED Ring

Hi everyone!

Have you ever been one to take arts and crafts kits and follow the instructions to make them? How about taking a large LEGO kit and following the model to build the coolest buildings and cars? Well, based on everything in society shifting towards a technology based product, a company named Adafruit offers items that you can use to build whatever you can imagine.

For example, some people have made LED ring earrings or bracelets along with a variety of other products! Adafruit has an entire portion of it's website dedicated just to the invention and final products that are created by people who use Adafruit components. Visit this website to look at all the awesome (and completely geeky) inventions that people have come up with using LEDs similar to what I worked with.

While at my internship, I have been working with the NeoPixel Ring which is basically 24 LED rings daisy chained together. Using a program called "MPLAB X IDE", and a debugger I have been programing the ring to light up in different ways based on how much data is given to each LED ring. Using C programming, I started to send each LED lights a specific amount of data from 0-256 bits. The reason that each LED light receives information is because a different amount of data changes the brightness. Furthermore, each LED has three different lights. One is green, one blue, and one red.

Okay let's step back to kindergarten for a moment! What are red blue and green class? Correct! They are primary colors. I know it was a while ago but when you think back to kindergarten you probably remember mixing the colors together and being completely surprised when a I new color formed. Well, as silly as it may sound. This happened to me when I was working on this project. On accident, I had sent both the red and the blue LED data... resulting in a purple color. At first it surprised me and I wondered if I messed up somehow given that I was expecting blue. However, after thinking about it a bit more, I realized that by sending data to both of the lights the result was a combination of them.

To give you a better idea of what I mean when I say "send the LED data" I wanted to include part of my code here. Now mind you, my code ended up being over 2,000 lines (crazy right!?!). This is the part that established the background color for the ring while the other lights rotated through changing color.

for(k=0; k<50; k++)
    {
        for(i=0; i<24; i++)                    // Generate Blue Background
        {
           
            Ring_Green_Data[i] = Off;
            Ring_Red_Data[i] = Off;
            Ring_Blue_Data[i] = 255;
        }

In basic terms, this is telling the ring to light up with a very very bright colored blue for all 24 LEDs. 255 is the level of maximum intensity for each color. Off means that the light is receiving 0 bits of data, thus it doesn't produce a color. Likewise, If I were to set "Ring_Green_Data[I] = 255" and the red and blue to off then you would see a very bright green.

To see a purple color I could turn both the red and the blue on to a medium intensity by sending 128 bits of both colors.

for(k=0; k<50; k++)
    {
        for(i=0; i<24; i++)                    // Generate Purple Background
        {
           
            Ring_Green_Data[i] = Off;
            Ring_Red_Data[i] = 128;
            Ring_Blue_Data[i] = 128;
        }

For the project I was working on, we sent each LED it's own color "assignment." The code you see above was to set the "background " color. Once this was established, the other color assignments were sent out to the specific LEDs that we wanted. For instance, if we wanted the 12th LED on the string to be blue we would sent the data to that LED by saying something like "Ring_Blue_Data[12] = 128." This would result in LED #12 showing up as a medium intensity blue light.

Okay, I know this is probably a lot of information to process and a lot of it doesn't make sense. Basically, if you spend a few weeks reading data sheets all over the internet and practicing (with a lot of trial and error) the product is something really awesome. Through this blog I wanted to show that while you may not know how to do something right away just try - it's interesting to see what you come up with!!

Here some example of bracelets and earrings using Adafruit NeoPixel rings.

Internship Update

Welcome back!

I have realized that in recent posts there hasn't been a lot of information about my internship. Current, I am working on two different projects, both of which have been incredibly interesting :)

The first is a project with the electrical engineer. I have been teaching myself how to code using C programming... which has been quite the adventure. C programming, in short, is a commonly used language that coders use to program machine functions. I thought that the coolest part was the data log. Each device within the system I am working on has its own data sheet. The part that is actually receiving the data being inputted through the code is the most important one. The data is transferred in three sets of 24-bit data. In basic terms, this means that the data is sent to the device. The device then processes the data and responds based on how the main.c page defines its function. While this can be super confusing, I think that it has been one of the most satisfying parts of my internship to alter the code and then see how that changes how the device functions.

The second main project that I have been working on is with the mechanical assembly team on the grey floor. While this doesn't focus on the engineering aspect of things, I have learned a lot about what engineers should consider while building their devices. This may not apply as much in my intended field of study, electrical engineering, however, if I were to program a device and then build a capsule or enclosure there are certain things to consider. While building a few of the devices in the back, I noticed how diffucult it was to screw things in due to angles that the engineers failed to consider. While it seems small, it takes longer to build and thus slows the entire proces down. Working with the mechanical assembly team has showed me how detailed engineering is and let me just say, I love it! Some call me a perfectionist and I guess I kinda am. I think that when attention is given to the smaller details in life, the final product is of better quality all around.

Come back next week to read more about my internship!

ASU NewSpace Expo

Good morning everyone! Welcome back to my blog!

This past week was a bit hectic but that only means my senior project research is in full gear. Last Thursday I attended Arizona State Universities NewSpace Expo. It was a networking breakfast followed by a quick update on a few of the things that this program is currently working on. The mission of this program is "the integration of academics and commercial space enterprises using the resources ASU has to offer."

Tes Calvert was one of the people who gave a brief presentation. As a major contributor to the program, she wanted to talk about a new and upcoming part of the NewSpace program, The Interplanetary Initiative. She said that "humankind is compelled to explore space, and will have a space future" arguing that there needs to be a link between humankind and all future space discovery. This makes a lot of sense. If something is inevitably going to occur then, of course, you want to be on the leading edge of progression. In my mind, this meant feeding a lot of money into the STEM programs that would help further space research. However, as if she read my mind, she was quick to caution that this initiative was NOT just for the STEM fields but for all fields. The "Interplanetary Initiative" is designed to pair discovery with education. I believe that this applies to my entire research project because it shows that while it might take a very specific person to love math the way engineers do, everyone can think creatively and everyone can make significant contributions to a group effort. No matter gender, ethnicity, or financial background all people think individually. The only way that progression is going to continue is if these diverse thoughts join together while working on various projects, such as those for the NewSpace Expo.

After a few more professors and staff gave presentations, Kaylee, a current ASU senior majoring in astrophysics, gave us a tour of the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology building. While on the tour we got to peek into the lab rooms through the windows. In many of the windows was the sign pictured below. After all of the research I have been conducting, this sign made me smile because it shows that no matter how many people still reject the idea of females in the engineering field, there are people, programs, and even schools as a whole supporting our goals. The sign reads "This space RESPECTS all aspects of people, including race, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, age, religion, and ability."



For more information on the NewSpace program, visit their website here.

Thank you! Stay tuned for more!

ASU's "Women in Engineering" Dinner

Hi again :)

This past Tuesday I had the honor of attending ASU's "Women in Engineering" Dinner. While the main goal of the dinner was to get the females in the room to attend ASU, the message ran far deeper. After dinner was served, two females took the stage to share their story.

The first was a female professor at ASU who focuses on recruitment in addition to her regular classess. She told us about the work that she does at ASU and the ways in which the school is willing to help reach out to the females, like those who were sitting in the room, so that they might not only attend ASU but also be bold enough to finish the courses. She prided ASU on having 21% female in the Ira. A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. The national average is just shy of 20%.  She contributed this lead to the welcoming faculity and staff because they created a firm support system.

The second person to speak was an alumna who went on to not only successfully pursue a degree in engineering but who also realized what it meant to be a female in the field. As an incoming student she feared the unknown. However, she went on to tell all the future sun-devils in the room that not only are they in good hands at the university but that she gained confidence within the STEM field because of the mentoring and tutoring opportunities that ASU offers females in the field. Above all she went on to say that ASU gave her "the confidence" to do things she "never thought possible."

At ASU specifically, they have a variety of programs, clubs, and organizations geared towards women. This week I plan to compare the different programs across various schools in order to figure out which ones are most successful.

This dinner not only helped me to decide on what school I am attending (GO DEVILSS!!!!) but it helped reaffirm the findings of my project.Thus far I have concluded that, in order for a female to be successful in the STEM fields, she must latch onto the confidence that current society is trying to build in her.

More to come soon! Thank you :)

STEM as Presented in Commercials

Hi, welcome back :) 

As I continue to conduct research for my project, I am starting to see a lot of patterns.

1) The mentality that "engineering is for boys" starts at a very young age
2) Females are being encouraged in all facets of life. The various campaigns geared towards building females up and encouraging them is giving all types of females more confidence and more boldness to pursue a variety of degrees, including engineering. 
3) Universities all across the country are making it a top priority to not only recruit females for their engineering programs but to retain them once they enroll. There are a variety of programs and initiatives geared towards helping females get all the way through college and into the workforce. 

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, women in today’s society are constantly being given the resources to not only expand their knowledge but to increase their confidence. Starting now at a young age, girls are being taught to love themselves for who they are and the things that they like to do. For example, Microsoft recently released a commercial titled "Girls Do Science" in which little girls begin describing some of the things they have made but then they question if it is socially acceptable. One girl even mentions that most of the scientists that students learn about are male, so science is something that the boys are supposed to do. However, the commercial takes it beyond opinion and draws in the fact that "only 2 out of 10 girls will go on to pursue science." This sad fact is because young girls are taught that science is for boys by the ratio they see of females to males on the television, in their classes, and from their surroundings. As mentioned with the Goldie Blox toys, this is a mentality that society is trying to correct. This is one of the largest factors contributing to the rise in the percentage of females in the field. It is commercials such as Microsoft's that are attempting to counter the traditional expectations for females. 

However, I believe that the women should be able to enter this field without the burden of feeling out of place. Currently, the average percentage of females in engineering programs at the university level is just shy of 20%... so even with more entering the field, we still stand in the minority. I think this causes females to transfer out and to leave the field. However, I will discuss how universities are also correcting this mentality in a future blog post.   

In conclusion, I believe that the key towards bringing more females into the industry is by catching them at a young age. In order for them to truly succeed at the highest levels, I believe that they need to know that they actually can do what it takes and that it is acceptable for them to be 1 of the 2 in every 10 girls that wishes to use their creativity in a way that shapes and transforms the world. 

Click here to watch the commercial discussed above.