Week 02: The Real Work Begins

Damn, it's been a week already and I still haven't updated my blog posts yet. I must be too pre-occupied playing around with Vuforia Studio (VS) that I lost track of time. Oh well, better late than never I suppose. Where do I even begin? So much has happened in the past week that I couldn't even begin to remember the details of the tasks I had accomplished for each of the days.

If I remembered correctly, the week started off at a snail's pace as my team and I began our background research regarding the uses of CNC machining and the steps required to operate it accurately. When I first dived into the research, I was completely lost. Me, being an electrical engineer student and all, I had no clue about mechanical terminology but after much struggle, I finally managed to grasp the important concepts of CNC Machining.

If you are also starting out with CNC machining and have zero clues on where to start, do check out my member, Shaza's blog post, as she has put together a simple but detailed guide on the basics of CNC machine operations.

Other than doing research, I also spent most of my time messing around with the free trial of VS. During that time, I discovered another software called Creo Illustrate. Essentially, Creo Illustrate is created by the same company that made Vuforia Studio and it is meant to work hand-in-hand with Vuforia Studio. If you are curious to know more about Creo Illustrate and what it does, do check out Sok Hng's blog post for this week.

Fast forward to Thursday, my team and I went for the workshop on the operation of CNC machines. To be honest, I am glad that our supervisor, Mr. David advised us to read up on CNC machining beforehand. Without the prior knowledge from the research, I would have been totally clueless during the workshop and the time spent there would have been wasted.

Tip: If you are starting out with a project that you have zero backgrounds on, ALWAYS do your research first.

After the workshop, we started planning out the various tasks and the deadlines for each of the tasks, so that we wouldn't take too long to complete minor task.

That's all for this week's blog post.

-Khai

Week 02

My team and I finally went down to the workshop to learn about the CNC Milling Machine. Credits to Mr. Poh for guiding us through the operations of the machine as it was really, really sophisticated. There were many things to take note of with each and every step and the control panel is just flooded with buttons.

This is the CNC Milling Machine my team and I will be using.

Apart from trying to learn how to use the CNC Machine, I played around with the Creo Illustrate program. Creo Illustrate is what we will be using to create our rich 3D animations which would come in handy when creating the step by step procedures implemented in our AR.

This is born from the first CAD model I stole off the internet.

One step at a time

Hello nerds! I am so sorry for the late post and I sincerely apologize.

As you guys remember, my team and I were tasked to create an Augmented Reality experience for the CNC Milling Machine to guide the end user to operate the machine with ONLY the instructions given by the tablet/hololens.

A few days ago my team and I went to a workshop to learn how to operate the CNC Milling Machine. What's a CNC Milling Machine you might ask..... It is a machine that is used to slot, drill, and shape usually a metal work-piece. Sound cool AM I RIGHT?! Well, it is MORE satisfying looking at it work! #oddlysatisfyingvideos

I would be lying if I wasn't drained out after the workshop. There were SO MANY buttons and steps to remember/follow before cutting your work-piece.

LIFE HACK: Take as many videos if you're at any kind of workshop, or you will forget EVERYTHING - and that defeats the purpose of going in the first place right?

ANOTHER LIFE HACK: bring PORTABLE charger! Do not repeat my mistake and you can thank me later ;-)

To summarize, before you start cutting ANY kind of work-piece, you have to measure all the tool's length that you will be using & set the work-piece coordinates.

We all know that life ain't always sunshine and rainbows... We ran into some difficulties detecting the icons on the control panel of the CNC Milling Machine... I think it has a mind of its own, it pops up as and when it feels like -______-. We are currently trying to use 3ds Max to import and export from Inventor to Vuforia - hopefully, it works! *fingers crossed*

We will be also having our first presentation on the 4th week. Please wish us all the luck that we need, and I'll see you again next week! hehe

Ashley