Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Smooth Sailing

Today we first looked at what we had to complete this week and next week in order to have this project finished for February 17. We decided that one of the most important components left was the circuit diagram. We found a sample diagram for a PS1 controller and Maddi used it to draw a circuit diagram using her tablet. So while she is doing that I started our documentation and this post. For the documentation component, which is worth the most points, we split the work so that I do the documentation for the electrical engineering component and Maddi does the documentation for materials, some of what we had spoken about in our proposal. Also since next week is our last week to work on this, we have to write up our reflection and post that on here too. We plan on doing most of this work in class and some at home in order to finish on time. Wow! It seems like a lot more work now after writing about it then it did before when just discussing it with Maddi. Another thing we still have to do is label everything and put them up on our presentation board so that we can present is to our class and demonstrate the importance of each piece. Thankfully though, everything has been going smoothly today in class unlike last class where we faced some problems taking the controller apart.

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Proposal for PS1 Controller

What product will you study?

We will study a PlayStation 1 Controller


What brand?

The brand is Sony.

What is your product designed to do?

The product is designed to control the actions of a character in a video game.

Why did you decide to choose it?

We chose it in order to see what parts allow the controller to make the characters function. Also, in order to see why Sony chose the parts they did in order for the controller to work.

What circuitry components do you think you will have to learn about to understand your product?

We will probably have to learn about transistors, diode, circuit board, controls, capacitor, conduction, protection, and insulation.

Upon doing research and finding pictured of the parts, we found a diagram of how the analog stick works. There is also both a circuit board and a printed circuit board. We also need to understand what makes the buttons pressure-sensitive, and we need to find out why the controllers are able to vibrate.

What materials is it made out of?

The controller is made out of mostly of plastic for the outside with some metals and alloys for the inner components such as the circuit board.