Week of 1/5 - 1/9

This week, I finished my part of the Word Clock project. The circuit boards we ordered before break came in on Tuesday. This new board included many new additions from our previous board. We decided to add a few more connections to power and ground on the PCB to better circulate current across the board because, in some areas, the lights appear a bit dimmer because of how far the current has to travel across the board to light up all the letters. This addition to the board was mostly done for us to use if the board needs to be changed in the future, because currently, we are operating with just two connections to power and ground. This way, if the lights get too dim in the center of the board, we can easily connect them to power directly from the board.

When I got the PCB, I worked that same day to solder all the pieces we needed on it to operate it properly. This included the ESP32, Neopixel connection, and the two power and ground connections. After soldering all of these elements, I connected it to the Word Clock, and it worked perfectly.

After I wrapped up the PCB, I began working on some thank-you gifts for the teachers who helped me with my college application process. One of these teachers, Mr. Cullen, wrote a recommendation letter for me. For this, I wanted to make a meaningful gift and card to give him to show him my appreciation for his work. When I had him last year, I created a bingo game for all of us to play in class based on things he does a lot during class. For his gift, I decided I would make a version of this bingo card out of wood for him to keep.

I designed this board in CAD and added text to it in Inkscape. I decided to leave out all the words in the boxes because engraving them would take an incredibly long time, and I wanted to write them myself once I had the final product. I finished the design and tested it in cardboard. I'm pretty satisfied with the way it came out, so now, all I have to do is cut it out in wood, then write in all the words in the boxes from the original bingo board.