Portfolio

A one of a kind, 2-Axis CNC Rangoli Making Machine with a novel color-flow control mechanism






About the project: This project was developed with the support of Design and Making lab(Makerspace), IIT Bombay by the Lab engineers:
Adnan Khan, Shashank Yadav and Fenil Chandarana. This is a 2-Axis Making Machine with Cartesian mechanism and a uniquie color-flow control mechanism. The machine will be able to make a rangoli of 650mmx750mm size. We have used open source software and firmware to run the machine and the components used in the machine are also open source.
For the hopper(container having color), mating part for the assembly of the machine and housing of all the electronic components, we have fabricated the parts in 3D printing machine and for the linkage which controls the flow of the color, the base for chainmail and the color level indicator, we have fabricated the parts in laser cutter.
For more details visit the webpage:
https://fenilchandarana.com/rangoli-making-machine.html

A digital clock that looks like it is made of multiple analog clocks,


About the project: This clock is the fusion of electronics and mechanics. It is made of multiple stepper motors, motor drivers, microontroller etc. From brinstorming till the completion of the project, I invested two and a half years. For more details visit the webpage

A bot that plays the keyboard based on the instructions generated by an AI tool,


About the project: Prof. Vinod Vidwans worked on developing an AI software which generates instructions for multiple musical instruments like flute, table, keyboard etc. He modifiied the software in a way that now it only generates instructions for the keyboard. If you open the instruction file generated by the software you will see 100s of lines which consist of details like which instrument selector to activate, which key to press, at what time does the key should be pressed, for how long should it be pressed.

So I started to develop a bot which will read those instruciton file line by line and actuate the actuators accordingly,



The instruction file is saved in the sd card. So to read those files I am using a SD card mmodule, for the actuators I am using servos.
Since every key and instrument selector will have a dedicated servo motor to press those keys, which is a lot of servo motors, I am using PCA9685 servo motor driver. Below is the connection diagram for all the components used,


This project was developed during my tenure at FLAME University.

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A device prints an image based on the speech prompt you give,





About the project: Based on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W microprocessor, this device converts your voice prompts into image and prints it. For the conversion of speech to text, I am using Google's speech recognition tool. For conversion of text to image, I am using OpenAI's Dall-E API. For printing that image, I am directly connecting the printer to the Pi zero with a USB and the Pi zero is communicating with the printer via CUPS.


This project was developed during my tenure at FLAME University in collaboration with Prof. Dishant Pradhan. Dishant worked on the form designing of the project: from CAD modelling to fabricating to post processing while I worked on the electronics and programming.

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A device that grants the access to use the machine to only authorized person, keeps record of when the machine was turned on and off and automatically shuts down the machine if it is in idle state for too long,


About the project: This is basically the The Auto shutdown device, but on steroids! Along with the Auto shutdown feature which shuts down the machine if it is in the idle state for a long time, this device has additional features that controls the access of the machine and allows only authorized people with issued RFID card to turn on the machine. The device also records the information about who accessed the machine, at what time and till what time. You have the flexibility to alter the authorization access wirelessly at any time.

For more information, visit the webpage

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A fusion of sculpture and electronics where I tried to integrate tactile sound of Ghatam with light and hand motion with electronic sound


About the project: This project was developed during my tenure at FLAME University in collaboration with the Sculpture studio, led by Prof. Arman Ovla and the Design lab under the guidance of Prof. Shamit Shrivastav and Prof. Amit Kundal. Our goal was to add technology into clay, that is combining electronics and sculpture.

Click here to view the full documentation of the project.

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A toy that can fly, kind of,


About the project: Building a drone was in my bucket list since a very long time. With the support of Shashank Yadav and Dip Ghodmare I was finaly able to build one.

This drone is controlled with the help of a mobile app called RemoteXY. And the drone is built with ESP8266 and Arduino nano. The ESP8266 will communiate with the RemoteXY app and take the input and send the output to the Arduino nano. The nano will take the input from ESP8266 and drive the ESCs accordingly. The drone also has a MPU6050 gyroscope for stabilization,






The drone is still under development, will post more details soon.

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A toy that runs on the ground,


About the project: For the RC car, I used ESP32, since it has in built bluetooth and WIFI, along with nrf Transceiver and IR remote sensor, so it can be controlled with multiple protocols. For the motors, I used BO motors and 4x 3.7V rechargable batteries. I bought readymade chassis kit that comes with acrylic chassis and standoff spacers,




Here is the connection diagram for RC car,


You can download the code used for RC car(receiver) from here

Now for the remote, I used joystick module, arduino nano and nrf Transceiver,


Here is the connection diagram for the RC remote,


You can download the code used for RC remote(transmitter) from here

RC car controlled with mobile app

Since the esp32 had inbuilt bluetooth and wifi capabilities, I thought to use a pre-built mobile app to control the RC car


You can download the Dabble app from playstore:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dabbleapp&hl=en_IN

You can download the code used for the RC car when controlled with Dabble app from here

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A device that automatically shuts down the 3D printer after the printing job is done. However, unlike the one mentioned above, this is a non-invasive one. Meaning, this is a simply plug-and-play device and you don't need to reconnect the connections inside PSU.
Here is the working of the device in Julia advanced 3D printer,


About the project: This too is a PCB designing project consisting of designing and fabricating a device which can detect when the printing job is done and after the detection it will shutdown the 3D printer.
While I was working on the invasive version of the Auto shutdown device, a colleague and mentor of mine, Tushar Bhole suggested to make the device where we don't need to reconnect anything inside the PSU of the printer and to make it like an extension board/spike guard, which can be directly connected to the mains.
So I modified the design and used different components for the device.
It is suposed to be connected in series between the mains power supply and the 3D printer. So the installation is simple, connect the device into your mains power supply and connect the 3D printer into the device,






The device has the option to enable or disable the Auto shutdown function, it will only shut down the printer automatically if you have turned on the device's SPST switch.
Once installed, keep the switch on the PSU of the printer always on and in order to turn on printer, press the device's push button and in order to manually shutdown the printer, turn off the mains power supply.

This project was developed with the help of Design and Making lab and Microfactory (Makerspace) IIT Bombay. Microfactory provided the micro-milling machine to mill the intital test PCBs and Design and Making lab provided the 3D printing machine to test those milled PCBs.

A device that automatically shuts down the 3D printer after the printing job is done. Here is the working of the device in different 3D printers,




About the project: This is a PCB designing project consisting of designing and fabricating a device which can detect when the printing job is done and after the detection it will shutdown the 3D printer.
This device works like an add-on for your Power supply unit. So it will work on any 3D printer. Here is the device installed in Julia Avanced,






Here is the device installed in Creality Ender 3






The device is supposed to be connected in series between the PSU and 3D printer. The device has the option to enable or disable the Auto shutdown function, it will only shut down the printer automatically if you have turned on the device's SPST switch.
Once installed, keep the switch on the PSU of the printer always on and in order to turn on printer, press the device's push button and in order to manually shutdown the printer, turn off the PSU switch. For the easy installation, set of wires connected with terminal connectors, push button, SPST switch along with its housing will be provided.


Refer to the image given below for installing the device in your Julia advanced 3D printer,
design a diagram
Refer to the image given below for installing the device in your Creality ender 3 3D printer,
design a diagram

This project was developed with the help of Design and Making lab and Microfactory (Makerspace) IIT Bombay. Microfactory provided the micro-milling machine to mill the intital test PCBs and Design and Making lab provided the 3D printing machine to test those milled PCBs.

A bot on wheels that follows white line, inclines 10°, 20° & 30° slope and dumps the payload at the end. Here is the working of the bot:


About the project: This is a line following bot that follows the white line and having a simple mechanism to dump the payload(pebbles). It's a 4 wheel drive bot, since the purpose of the bot was to dump the payload after inclining multiple degrees of slope ranging 10°, 20° & 30°.
For the electronics I have used:
4x 100RPM BO motors
1x L293D motor driver
1x Arduino UNO
2x IR sensor module
1x MG90 servo motor
1x SPST Switch
3x 3.3V Rechargable battery(battery pack)
4x Wheels
Bolts, nuts and standoff spacers

To detect the white line, I have used 2 IR module and arranged them at a distance so that the white line falls between the two module
To drive the wheels I have used 4 100RPM BO motors, which is driven by L293D motor driver.
For the microcontroller I have used Arduino UNO which sends the signal to the motor driver
To lift the lid the container, I have used MG90 servo motor(I would recommend using MG995 instead, more reliable)

Here is the schematic diagram of the connections:


Here are some shots of the bot:










I used a L shape clamp to restrict the movement of the lid horizantally,


used a small piece of acrylic sheet and placed it at an angle inside the container so that the pebbles slides easily,




Here is the working of the dumping mechanism:


The code i used for the programming:
I fabricated the container using a 3D printer and fabricated the lid and chassis using laser cutter




You can download the files necessary for fabrication like STL and DXF from here

A device that counts the number of dishes from its stack, and also keeps track of the total number when the dishes are counted in batches


About the project: Prof. Amit Kundal once told me to roam around the FLAME's campus and find out some problems that the Design Lab can solve. I went to places like library, sports complex and mess, where 100s of students and staff access the premises on a daily basis. In the mess premises, I observed that the staff counts the number of dishes at the end of every meal. When I talked to them about this, they told me that their catering company gets the payment based on the number of dishes served to the students and staff(and not how much food they have cooked). So to keep track of how many dishes are served in each meal, they manually count the number of dishes TWICE a meal. For example, before the start of the breakfast, they will count the number of dishes, let's say it came to 2000 dishes. At the end of the breakfast, they will count the dishes again and let's say it came to 400 dishes, which means throughout the breakfast, they served 1600 dishes. Now there are 4 meals a day: Breakast, lunch, snacks and dinner. So they staff counts the dishes twice a meal, 4 times a day, 7 days a week!

I thought that manually counting these many dishes is time consuming. So I thought about some potential solution which can ease up this tedious process. I considered different approaches like designing a gear whose teeths will slide in the gap between two dishes and then you roll the gear along the edges of the dishes, depending on how much and how many times the gear has rotated, it will give you the count. I also considered a similar approach of using a vibration sensor at the end of a stick. So when you slide the stick along the edge of the dish stack, depending on how many times did the stick hit the dishes, it will give you the count.
Prof. Shamit Shrivastav also suggested to take inspiration from the bar code scanner. Like depending on how many times the scanner's line breaks, it will determine the number of dishes.

The only problem with going further with these approaches is the unevenness in the gap between dishes:


The above are the dishes served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then there are these dishes served for snacks,


so between the two dishes, there were either not enough gap or the gaps were very unven to try any of the approaches I considered.

I then decided to go ahead with the approach of weight. Since the dishes are mass produced, weight of each dishes will be same, except for the minimal variation. So if you know the wright of 1 dish and you have a total mass, then with simple calculation you will get to know total number of dishes based on total mass. With a simple setup consisting of a load cell to measure weight, a OLED to display the outcome and a rotary encoder to give input and a bit of programming, I was able to get the number of items,




Here is the circuit diagram for the components used:


I considered these three things while programming,
-   Pre-saving the master weight. Meaning, as there are different sizes of dishes available in the mess, I saved the reference weight of every dishes for the future calculation. So before you put the stack of dishes/utensils onto the load cell, you need to select which dishes you're counting.
-   Counting dishes/utensils whose weight is not saved. I didn't want the restriction of only able to count the dishes whose reference weight is saved in the memory. So I considered the ability to temporary save the reference weight for the calculation. You can get a glimpse of it here
-   Keeping track of total count. Now Practically, it is not possible to stack 2000 dishes in one go, so the person is going to measure the dishes in batches. Let say the person picked up random number of dishes- 38 and kept it on load cell. Then the person again picked up random number of dishes- 43 and kept it on lload cell. Now in order to not remember and calculate the total number of dishes like 38+43=81, I have added the feature which will keep track of total count and display in OLED.

This project was developed during my tenure at FLAME University

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A device that detects when there is a water leakage in the taps:




About the project: Back in 2017, I participated in an even called https://www.techstars.com/communities/startup-weekend where you need to pitch an idea, work on that idea as a team, build the product and pitch the product to potential investors, all this in 3 days. This was just to give you a glimpse of a startup world. I pitched the idea of detecting water leak from the taps in public places. My idea didn't get selected, but I chose to work on the project for a few months and I ended up with a very basic proof-of-concept model. The device basically detects the continuity of two electrodes, meaning when the water will pass through those two electrodes, microcontroller will know there is a leak and start recording the data.
Provision of two electrodes for the water to pass,


During my Fab Academy journey, for the final project, I choose to persue this project with more advancements with the aim to make it a finished-ready to sell device. I was able to achieve some part of the desired goal,

A lantern with a novel ON/OFF mechanism,


About the project: The idea was that, turtles used to get stuck in the fishing net along with the fishes. And since turtles are one of the most endangered species, Vivek Thashnath thought about hanging some kind of bright light onto the fishing net. According to some research, turtles stay/scare away from the bright light.

Inspired from Vivek Thashnath's design concept, I designed the lantern on fusion 360 with a unique ON/OFF mechanism. Where if you pull the top lid, lantern will turn on and vice-a-versa.





For the electronics, I used a simple limit switch(NC and COM), LED, battery and BMS,






This project was developed during my tenure at FLAME University

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A duster with an integrated humidifier which releases mist when placed in front of the white board


About the project: After you write something on the white board and leave it as it is for a few days, it will be very difficult to erase the board with the regular duster since the marker's ink has all dried up. Prof. Shamit Shrivastav's vision to solve this problem was to redesign the regular duster by adding an element of water inside a spray bottle. With the spray bottle, you can damp the white board, after which it will be easy to remove the ink with the duster.

I later thought to automate the process of maually spraying the water by adding a Piezoelectric Humidifier which will convert water into mist and to automatically release the mist when the duster is in front of the board, I added the Infrared LEDs. I also used MOSFET for switching the Piezoelectric humidifier ON & OFF when the IR LEDs detect something.


So the user will have both the option, they can use the spray bottle to manually spray the water or they can use the humidifier to release mist.

When I was discussing about this project with Prof. Sherline Pimenta, she suggested that similar kind of setup can be used in the bathroom as well, to keep the bathroom smelling fresh. Only difference will be instead of releasing the mist after detecting an object, it will release mist every few minutes and instead of using water, we use scented water or fragrance oil.

Below is the connections for humidifier, IR LEDs and MOSFET,


This project was developed during my tenure at FLAME University

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A vintage locomotive designed in multiple parts, fabricated in laser cutter and then assembed. Here is the glimpse of the locomotive:


About the project: The inspiration of making this came from the store ugears and was suggested to me by Prof. Ankit Jain.
I took the reference of this locomotive:


I then designed the locomotive in a way that I can later fabricate them using laser cutter.


The locomotive is assembled using different press-fit joints like finger joint and wedge joint:


It also has a living hinge feature to make the cylindrical front part of the engine. Here are some snapshots of the locomotive:








I used thin wooden sticks and rubber band so that when the locomotive is pulled and released, it will automatically move forward.


You can download the DXF files for fabricating the locomotive from here

A basic verison of line following bot which follows the path of the black line:


About the project: While working on the project, I wanted to achieve two things: make the bot as small as possible and use Infrared LEDs instead of using a module. I started with soldering the IR LEDs with resistor to make it work like an IR module but without potentiometer to set the sensitivity,




Here is the schematic diagram for the IR LEDs,


The chassis is just 100mm in size. To run the bot, I wasn't using any battery, insted I was using DC power supply. Here are some snapshots of the bot:








For the electronics I have used:
2x 100RPM BO motors
1x L293D motor driver
1x Arduino UNO
2x Pair of IR LEDs with resistor(PCB)
2x Wheels
1x Caster wheels
Bolts nuts and standoff spacers

To detect the black line, I mounted the PCB onto the bot where the pair of IR LEDs is fixed at distance, between which bot is suppose to follow the black line
To drive the wheels I have used 2 100RPM BO motors, which is driven by L293D motor driver.
For the microcontroller I have used Arduino UNO which sends the signal to the motor driver

. Here is the schematic diagram of the connections:


The code I used for the programming:
For more details, visit the instructable page:
https://www.instructables.com/Line-Following-Bot/

An industrial grade USB to RS485 bidirectional converter:








About the project: This is a PCB designing project that I took as free lancing. I took the refrence of Waveshare's USB to RS485

Limit switch that automatically shuts down the 3D printer(Ender 3) after the printing is done:


About the project: In all the 3D printers, after the printing job is done, the printer will stay on(the always on fan, display, microcontroller) until you manually turn them off. I didn't want my 3D printer to unnecessarily stay on and because of that I had to schedule the print job according to the print time.

So I installed a limit switch on the printer in a way that after the printing job is done, the bed will move forward on the Yaxis and hit the limit switch,


The limit switch will cause the relay module to trigger,




The relay is conntected with the AC supply line in series that powers the 3D printer and when the limit switch triggers the relay module, it will break the connection of AC power supply, thus causing the printer to shut down. The relay is getting external 5V supply(you can even use a buck converter),


For more details, visit my instructable webpage: https://www.instructables.com/Ender-3-Auto-Shutdown/

A NanoLeaf made of multiple hexagon shape blocks with LED strip inside:




About the project: I cut multiple pieces of hexagon shapes from cardboard and then stick the boundry of the hexagon block made of corrugated sheet,


stick the hexagon blocks together with adhesive and attached a wooden block behind for better strength,


stick aluminium foil on the cardboard for better reflection,


made slits on the boundry and routed LED strip through all the hexagon blocks,




added thermocol sheets to diffuse the light,

An optical illusion which looks like an infinite tunnel,




About the project: After making the NanoLeaf, I still had some LED strip left, so I thought to make use of it by making an INfinity mirror. The principle of infinity mirror is simple: Place LED between a normal mirror and a two way mirror and it will give you an effect of a infinity tunnel.
I just purchased a photo frame, stick the LED strip inside the frame and stick normal mirror on the back and two way mirror on the front,

A device that will give you a feedback if you match the image with the text correctly!


About the project: This was my first DIY project that I made when I was in 7th grade. The image is connected with the text through wire. Now when you connect the battery, LED and image-text(wire) in series, you complete the circuit and you get a feedback if the match is correct.