Post #5

Building the actual radio has been a long process and there were many changes. We realized that our initial plan was ambitious and that it was only practical for us to build a solar powered, battery powered radio without a hand crank. Also, the materials that we bought at first turned out to be useless because the guides online on how to build a radio are not reliable. After more research, we realized that it would be best for us to find a circuit diagram of a radio receiver and follow it.

The materials for our new radio circuit diagram had to be bought at Apliu street in Kowloon, and we had to browse many different shops because the individual components are not easy to find, since they are very specific.

Here is our final circuit plan, and we have successfully made it work.

Since the construction took up most of the time, we did not have enough time to do the packaging but we were able to get a lot of information about how to distribute this product of ours once we are able to produce more of the same radios, and have a packaging for the radio.

Finding time to work with my partners have been difficult at times, however all of our meetings have been very productive so we were able to do a lot every time.

Post #4 Materials

Our group has already come up with a basic plan of what the circuitry of the radio-communicator box would be like. We also found plans for making the two way and one way radio we'll be making soon. The next step would be to find all the materials and buy them. We plan on buying them in Kowloon. Before that, we have to show Dr. Diehl one more time our general circuitry to see if everything makes sense.

I have asked for permission to work in a lab in Hong Kong Polyu with our materials when making our radio.

Post #3 - Progress

We have met once, and talked about it only briefly. We have a few ideas on how to start this project and what procedures we should follow, but we haven't decided on which one to use yet. Once we have decided we will be consulting Dr. Diehl, we also heard that Mr. Nolasco is good with circuits, so if we need help we might also be looking for him. In the upcoming week we will meet up again to decide on this and hopefully we can start the building process.

Post #2

We have finished our final proposals, and will start the project preferably during Christmas. We have individually done research on this topic, and we bought a solar/battery powered radio/flash light that can be our early model. We have talked to our mentor (Dr. Diehl) and he will be happy to help us at any time.

We have also learned that to construct this requires a basic knowledge, understanding of circuitry and physics. This electronic device is fairly difficult to build and will require lots of materials. We will definitely need to start it during Christmas and have something built by then. At least.

I am so far pleased with our understanding and vision of what the result of this project will be like. We are pretty clear with what we are doing, but haven’t really had a chance to get a start on it yet, so there we still do not really know what challenges we will face.

Our group (Wilkins Cheng, Jonathan Auguste, Joshua Surya) will start during Christmas and we plan to prepare all the materials this week. Some might have to be ordered overseas. The earlier we start, the better.

Post #1 - Preparation

The first thing I did after finding two partners was research.  That way I'll be able to find out what was the perfect thing to build.  I was hoping to find something doable, as well as being a challenge.  At the end, my group and I thought it was good to build a solar powered radio, with maybe some other functions.  Since this is probably something that has already been built, the focus on our project is learning the physics and mechanics behind building this electronic toy.

I am expecting this to be a fun and challenging project.  We don't really have an definite outline of what our final product would be, so it is possible that we make changes in the way because right now we are still not too sure about the level of difficulty of building the machine.  I've always wanted to do this, and I don't think the level of difficulty would change how excited I feel about this project.

At the moment, we have a list of possible mentors, but have not decided on one yet.  Hopefully we will pick one by next week and have a conversation with him/her.