For this assignment I intended to keep things rather simple. I've already learned in the few weeks we've been working that the simplest-looking things are often very hard to make. So, with that in mind I decided to make a much-needed enclosure for my P.Comp final that was primarily functional and hopefully pretty.
My partner and I are making a multi-user game based on Pacman and Tag. In order to play, users must wear a vest that has LED lights and and arduino Nano that gives commands through Bluetooth.
The arduino is mounted on a small breadboard and everything is connected to that. I was hoping to hide the arduino and enclosure in the vest pockets which turned out to be a good idea since they are very big (meant for tools and such). We have a large quantity of wires so I wanted my box to have holes that sort of organized them in groups.
I decided to use acrylic because I had a lot of that left over from my previous project.
I bought 1" stand-off for my box and laser cut the base, sides and top with the respective holes for screws and cables. I used the stand-offs to separate the bottom and top and the screws to keep it together. One I knew those fit, I took it apart and glued the sides to the base. I left one side open because my project isn't done yet. Once we finish we will add a small battery to power the vest, I'll add the last side and screw on the top.
The idea is that the players can't mess with the insides and that the enclosure will help the circuit survive when the player is running around playing our game.
I decorated the bottom of my box with metallic masking tape to give it a little detail.
I think I should've thought better about how to access the circuit more easily without making it easy for the user to mess with it. The whole time I was in a bit of a dilemma because the enclosure had to be strong enough to protect the device but at the same time not be a pain if we wanted to adjust it.