Suitable Situation Search

Below is some photos of the bus stop waiting area at QUT Kelvin Grove. We think this is a great example of the sort of area our device would aim to be placed in initial trials of the design.

Power-ade-Point

Apart from a few minor mechanical and technological errors on the day of the presentation, we were able to successfully demonstrate our ideas to the tutors and peers. After a certain group member accidentally broke the syringe pump that we would use in our displays to show its operation, i was forced to improvise and sure enough, red Powerade worked a treat...and tastes great!

This concept shows an birds-eye layout of the seating in a Brisbane City Council Bus. The image on the left shows the bus is empty, the middle has about 5 seats taken (ten people on bus), and the right image shows the bus is completely full.


After the presentations we got together one afternoon to collaborate and try to find a way we could incorporate all of our concepts into the one interactive bus stop timetable. The three concepts are Pat's part which concentrated on the interactive route display, Ned's part which shows the position of the bus, and my part which shows the capacity of the bus. We also looked at the design breif to see if our design was filling the correct criteria, this includes an exact description of the type of bus stop we are designing for. We came up with many ideas in this sessions and i will go through many of them in the following blog posts.


Throughout the remainder of the project we have been divided up into Object (Pat), Behavior (Ned) and Scenario (me) groups. Each week we will get into these groups in class and discuss different aspects of our designs.

Pump it up!

Meanwhile, Ned and Pat have been doing an awesome job figuring out the positive displacement pump. The photos below show final construction of the pump. Unfortunately, we are yet to successfully get the pump to work using the step motor to rotate the axel. We were able to use the pump with a drill connected to the axel, so we came to the conclusion that the step motor just isn’t powerful enough. We will continue to try and make the pump have less friction so it can pump more freely.

Lo-fi'in

Construction of my bus seating device was commenced today. I went to reverse garbage this morning to get inspiration and try to find appropriate materials for my design. I wanted this device to be mounted on the wall so I needed the display to be non-obtrusive and blend in with whatever it is to be mounted on. Clear acrylic seemed to be the most appropriate and manageable material for this. I have constructed a thin rectangular acrylic box with a tube coming out of the bottom. An image of the interior of a BCC bus will be printed on the front of the acrylic box. Coloured liquid will fill the inside of the box and be visible through cut-outs of the seats on the bus. The liquid is pumped into the seat display via a positive displacement pump that will run off our step-motor. The step-motor will communicate with the bus’s computer to find the number of people on the bus. So if the bus is full and no seats are available, the box would be filled with liquid, showing that all of the seats are taken.




(images to come)


Because of the small diameter of the tube that fills the acrylic box with fluid, it takes quite a while to change the level of the liquid. Because of this I have thought of a way to minimise the amount of liquid in the display. I will silicon all the non visible areas of the hollow box, leaving a narrow path for the fluid to flow through. This will enable the display to very quickly change the number of seats availably (level of liquid).

Seat Spyer

This whole time Ned, Pat and I have been working together, sharing ideas and building a step motor and positive displacement pump. We found out in class this week that we have to have to choose separate concepts. After discussing the situation with the tutor we decided we can all use the step motor and pump but choose a different design that uses the mechanism.




My device will display the number of available seats on the bus of your choice. A computer will communicate with the busses computer which shows how many people are on the bus. It will determine this by subtracting the number of go-card “swipe offs” by go-card “swipe ons”. A hollow case is mounted on the wall with an interior layout of the bus. The seats will glow red if they are occupied. Red liquid will be pumped into the bottom of the bus layout and show through the seats that are occupied.

I'm Positive Displacement Pump

This week we looked into the mechanisms and electronics involved in our bus position monitor. One initial idea of the mechanism for this design was using a large syringe type pump and tube to adjust the height of liquid in the tube. This shows the progress of the bus on route, the top of the liquid shows the times remaining, when the tube is empty the bus has arrived. This would work but we would need to make a motor that could pull and push the head of the syringe pump.




The sketch below illustrates our solution to this problem. The mechanism would work using a positive displacement pump driven by a programmable step motor to regulate exactly how much water passes into the tube. The step motor will be attached to the center of the Mercedes symbol which rotates, allowing water to be squeezed through the pipe.

The step motor has not been fully cooperating with us at this stage, but we have faith. Ned and Pat went to the workshop and begun to make the positive displacement pump. The tubing in the photo below was a good example of how it will work, but we realised it will have to be thinner and softer for our lo-fi model.

Now all we have to figure out is how we can tell the step motor the position of the bus. Or at least how we can communicate this in the concept presentation.