Fine Motor Skill Trainer

For this project, I made a stand-alone unit with a series of tasks for children to practice and hopefully improve upon fine motor skills they will use in everyday life. The inspiration for this project comes from my little sister who has a learning disability. She also has an incredibly hard time with fine motor skills such as zipping a zipper, tying her shoes, or unscrewing lids. Through this project, I hope she can practice and improve these skills in a way that is both visually and audibly engaging.

Shallow cardboard box

Circuit Playground Express w/ battery pack

Felt

Craft foam sheets

Two snap buttons

Conductive zipper

Small mason jar

Plastic furniture bumper

Felt furniture bumper

Three sewable LED lights (green)

Conductive Tape

Conductive Thread

Normal thread

Soldering wire

Craft Glue

Velcro stickie pads

Scissors

Sewing kit

Wire strippers

Needle nose pliers

Duct Tape

1. Be mindful of the blueprint attached to this step. Refer back to it as you progress with each component to make sure you are sewing the correct components to the correct pins!
2. The biggest problem I encountered was accidentally overlapping the thread of different circuits. When you tie off each end and cut the excess, there is sometimes the tail end that will get pushed against another circuit thread which will stop them from working. I suggest using pieces of tape to secure any loose ends of conductive thread away from nearby pieces. 
3. Test each component as you move throughout the project. This will help you identify specific problems as they arise instead of trying to figure out which component is causing issues when it is all finished. This may mean integrating steps 16 and 17 before step 8.

Using your box as a guideline, draw outlines of the edges and where each component will go on top of a piece of felt (i.e. Circuit Playground, mason jar, snap buttons, zipper).

Cut out the mason jar portion of the box into quarters or eighths and position the mason jar inside to make sure it fits.

With normal thread, sew non-electric components onto the felt such as the zipper and button snap backing and straps (not the button snaps yet)

Cut a piece of wire the length of how far apart you want the button snaps to be and strip a ¼ inch off each end. Then wrap each end of the exposed wire into the top of the snap button (male end). Sew the button snaps onto the straps that will reach across to the soon-to-be snap button bottoms.

Glue the felt bumper pad into the center of where the circuit playground will be on the felt. Once dry, take the backing off to reveal the sticky side and apply to the backside of the circuit playground with the power port facing towards the top edge of box. Using this furniture bumper elevates the circuit playground so it is easier to test circuits without sewing through felt each time.

Using conductive thread and a needle, thread the lower bottom (female) snap button to the felt backing and then thread it through the backside of the felt up through pin A5 on the circuit playground. Keeping the thread tight through the pin, thread it back through the felt, and tie it off on the backside

1. Position the external LED light above the snap button backing where you want it with the negative side facing up and the positive side facing down. Using conductive thread, thread the need up through the negative side of the LED pin and back down as close to the outside of the LED as possible. Then string thread along the backside of felt and up through the top right ground port of the CP. Thread over outside of the port and tie off on the backside of felt. 

Using another piece of conductive thread, sew in the upper snap button (female) to the backing and string along the backside of the felt. Then bring the thread up through the positive side of the LED and back through on the outside of LED, then tie off on the backside of felt. This will complete the circuit. Once programmed, the circuit will be continuously running but will not trigger a signal to the CP or LED until both buttons are snapped together, which will complete the circuit.

Unlike the snap button portion, the LED light pins for the Zipper will each be connected to its one pin on the Circuit Playground. Position where you want the LED above the zipper, and make sure the positive side of LED is facing up this time. Using conductive thread, go up through the backside of the felt through the positive end of the LED and tie it to pin A1 in the same manner as the other stitches (up through the pin running along the backside of felt, over the edge, and tied off on the backside of felt). Thread the negative side of the LED through the leftmost ground pin on the CP and tie off.

Position the 3rd and final LED where you’d like it to go above the mason jar with the negative side to the left, and the positive side to the right. Use conductive thread to sew the positive side to pin A4, and a separate piece to sew the negative side to the bottom right ground pin.

Using scissors, cut the plastic furniture bumper in half, and take off backing. Make a few wraps around the semi-circle with one end of the conductive thread (leave 7-8 inches leftover on the other end), and then cut a piece of conductive tape that is the same shape as the semi-circle. Place the conductive tape on top of the thread that is wrapped around the bumper, and place the sticky side of the bumper onto the felt with the bottom edge touching the top teeth of the zipper. Make sure there is a connection between the conductive tape and the metallic teeth at the top of the zipper. Doing this allows the user to send a signal to the circuit playground from the zipper by zipping the zipper up. With the other end of the thread that was just taped to the bumper, thread it along the backside of the felt and connect it to pin A2. During this process, make sure not to overlap different conductive threads when sewing, as they will cancel or short the circuit function.

Using the velcro strips, secure the felt mat onto the box. The velcro strips allow for easy access to the circuitry on the backside in case something goes wrong, and needs to be fixed or redone (as opposed to permanently gluing it). Using scissors, cut the hole where the mason jar will go by cutting into eighths (like a pizza). This, as opposed to one circular cut will allow you to adjust the size of the cuts on each point so that the felt is positioned inside the box, making a cleaner seam along the edge. Once you can tell the mason jar fits snug, remove the jar and the felt off the top of the box.

Take another piece of conductive thread and thread through pin A3, over the edge, and back through felt. Leave this thread intact for now but out of your way. Take another piece of wire and strip around 1” off each side. With needle nose pliers, pinch the edge of the wire and roll it around the prongs 6-7 times making a coil on the end of the exposed wire. Position it to the outside of the mason jar along the bottom. What you want is to hold it in place and screw on the lid of the jar to make sure the bottom of the metal lid makes contact with the top of the metal coil. Once you can see that contact is being made or that the jar lid is slightly securing the position of the coil when tightened, use a generous amount of duct tape to secure the plastic portion of the wire to the side of the jar, with the top coil still exposed. With the thread that’s attached to pin A4 and not tied off, come back through to the top of the felt near the top of where the jar will be (within a 1/2”). Buckle the wire by folding the half that is not taped down up so that it will be poking out of the box near the backside of the jar.

Replace the felt mat back onto the velcro. Place the jar in the box with the exposed wire hanging out the side of the hole cut for the jar. ¾ crimp the exposed wire end in half and wrap the conductive thread around the horseshoe crimp. Lastly, take a piece of conductive tape and wrap it tightly around the section of thread that is wrapped around the wire so it doesn't flare out. For this portion, the act of screwing the mason jar tight will make the lid touch the coil and the coil will then feed a signal to the thread that is attached to pin A4.

1. I made the code for this project in MakeCode by Adafruit. You can either download the code here or experiment around in MakeCode to replicate it. After replicating the code, download the file and plug the micro USB into the CP. Connect the USB A end to your computer and drag the file onto the CLAYBOOT drive on your computer. Using the code provided, test to make sure that each component is working correctly, and adjust if necessary. When a task is complete, the LED above the task should light up and the CP should make a “ba-ding” sound. When all tasks are completed, the CP should do a light show and play a congratulatory tune.

Once you've uploaded the file onto the CP, you can disconnect the micro USB. Make sure you put batteries into the battery pack for your CP. You will then cut a small hole on the top backside of the box. Put the circuit playground battery pack inside the box and thread the port through the hole to connect it to the circuit playground power port on top.

Now that the complicated part is finished, it’s time to decorate the remainder of the exposed box. Cut out felt to the dimensions of the sides of the box and glue them on. For mine, I also added elements such as insects for the button snaps as they snap onto a flower, or googly eyes above the zipper to resemble a face. Since this project is oriented for smaller children, I also cut out arrows from a foam mat with one going right and one going left. I wrote “tighty” for the right arrow, and “loosey” for the left arrow, which I then placed on top of the mason jar lid

An idea for customization could include integrating representations of clothing articles for the zipper and snap buttons. You could also include tasks like tying a shoelace. Although this would be difficult to make a circuit that can identify when the task is completed, you could have a diagram next to the lace of what a completed shoelace looks like and have the user press a button when they’ve replicated the diagram. You could also make a cover for the Circuit Playground that is still transparent enough to see the lights, but blends in better with the rest of the unit aesthetic.