Iterating to the Final Design
Like I mentioned last class, the design intent was to mimic a retro macintosh’s shape while trying to keep a minimal black/white aesthetic so I can use it on my desk. I initially mocked up the following CAD model and printed it out:
However, some of the dimensions were slightly off so I needed to do a bit more tinkering, testing, adn then I was able to print out the final version:
(Sorry about the photo quality, I’ve been recording / taking photos on my tablet whenever my phone is in the 3D printed enclosure). Speaking of which, here is a video of it all working:
I broke it…
The next step was to try and get hotspot working so I could demo it in class. However, since I setup the raspberry pi to be headless (i.e. no graphics interface since I don’t have a monitor), I needed to take a step of blind faith when trying to connect it to my hotspot. However, I failed to account for Apple enforcing client isolation for their phone’s hotspot. Essentially, they make it so devices on the same hotspot network can’t talk to one another since that could lead to network attacks across network clients.
Unfortunately for me, this meant that I was locked out of my raspberry pi and needed to borrow a monitor from a friend. This image is but a part of the following chaos of me trying to piece everything back together:
Phew!
Luckily, after enough tinkering with this project, I new enough to simply retrace my steps and was able to get everything working again:
Open-Sourcing the Project
For now, I’ll put a pause on trying to get hotspot working since I couldn’t figure out a way to bypass Apple’s security protocols (which is probably for the better). Also, I’m already very pleased with the clean, yet slightly “prototyped” aesthetic of the raw 3D print so I chose to not touch it up at all. Instead, I’d like to open-source all of the project files to help anyone else who may be interested in building this project. I’ve created a GitHub repository and will fill it out over the course of the final week with all of the python code, instructions, CAD files, etc.: LINK
Other than that, I’m super happy with how this project came out!