My TKS Build Focus Project: Learnings & Experiences
To Begin: The Learn Project
I set out with learning all about virtual reality (one of my personal favourite topics) and it was all smooth sailing. For me, when I’m hooked on a topic, I can spend hours on end researching it and thinking of its applications. I love to go down rabbit holes because of my endless curiosity for a lot of things. Anyways, it’s not like I had a lot much more to do while stuck either at home or in school. I was able to find out a lot more about VR and its uses and how robotics work, so connecting the two seemed like a good idea.
The Original Idea: Apply Project
Originally, I had an ambitious idea, and to be honest it was definitely not feasible to do in two months, especially due to my expertise in procrastination. My plan? Building a robotic arm and using haptics, control it using a virtual reality headset. I wanted to do this on a small scale to see if a doctor could control a robotic attachment from a different country to perform surgery in the developing world. Pretty complicated for a 13-year-old. Since I have very minimal experience using VR applications such as Unity, I was able to figure out that this might not be the right time to do so and focused on another component of the project.
So What Did I Do?
I decided to go with the robotic arm part first and decided that I would try to incorporate the virtual reality element in the summer. To be honest, I didn’t foresee any of the challenges a robotic arm could provide, so I waited until April to get a start on the project, which is probably my biggest regret. April started, and soon it ended, with many technical difficulties.
The Difficulties?
A numerous amount, which I experienced throughout. I had to rebuild the robotic arm multiple times as some screws and nuts wouldn’t stay in place. It was pretty frustrating at times, but it's what happens when you don’t look at every potential problem. It took me a while to get things done right and then move on to coding the arm. Using Arduino software and some help from the source code package provided with the kit, I took some time to understand some coding of the arm to get it to work. With many mishaps, I was finally able to finish it and it worked out pretty well.
What I Wish I Did
Things don’t always go as smoothly as it seems they will, and this year, I definitely learned that. I wish I had gotten to work on the Apply Project much earlier and had dedicated more time and effort towards it. That could have meant that I’d have a lot less stress on completing it and even some time to work on the virtual reality side of things so I could build a VR app to control the arm.
My Reflections
Well, now that I can’t change the past (unless I decide to make a time machine), I can now reflect on what wasn’t much of a success. So here are some takeaways of mine:
- Don’t procrastinate. Maybe pressure can help you, but the unnecessary stress of doing something later than I should’ve of another time, taught me that it’s better to get things done earlier than late.
- Get out of your comfort zone. I had very minimal experience with robotics and am now so glad that I tried something a bit different than what I normally do with JavaScript, HTML, and Python. On the building side of things, I struggled and it was a good struggle in the fact that I learned a lot more about functionality, and was much harder than any LEGO set. And on the coding side of things, I learnt quite a bit about Arduino, so why not try something new?
My Next Steps
Over the summer, I plan on building something with VR, maybe directly related to the robotic arm, or maybe not, but what I do know is that whatever I do, I’ll use my previous learnings to help make things go a lot more smoothly.
