Interactive School Model

The model of the school is a project whose main objective is to help new students to orient themselves.

In fact, the model is equipped with LEDs that light up according to codes entered via arduino. Every code that will be inserted will correspond to a classroom.

We hope it will help!

FOR THE STRUCTURE:

• Polystyrene (for the support and the floors);
• Paperboard and sheets of paper (for the stairs);
• Plexiglass (for walls);
• Glue;
• Arduino;
• Electrical wires;
• LED lights.

FOR THE DECORATIONS:

• DAS with different hues of green paint (for trees and flower beds);
• Papier mache (for flower beds)
• White paint;
• Plates of plastic paper (to indicate the letter or the number of the halls and toliets);
• Paperboard, plastic sheets and wire (for the doors).

To get an accurate map of the school, inclusive of all the measurements we needed (lenght of the walls, distance from a wall to another and so on) and the right proportions, we went around the school and took the measures. Then, because we couldn’t measure every single wall, we tried to tell apart which ones had the same length. Finally, we copied everything on OnShape and finished the work online, by adapting and checking the measurements so that every floor would be more or less the same size.

To make the model of our school we did the following steps:

1. Count all the atria and understand how they are located

2. Take scale measurements of the atriums based on fire maps.

3. Make a small cardboard prototype.

4. Choosing the material to make the structure: we have chosen polystyrene because it is a light material.

5. Draw the various atriums on the polystyrene and cut them out with the cutter

6. Paint the various lobbies white

7. Start soldering the various LEDs: take a strip of LEDs and cut it at the division between 2 LEDs, take the measurements so that each LED corresponds to a classroom and use the soldering iron to connect them together with the wires.

8. Glue the LEDs and the corresponding wires to the polystyrene using the white tape

9. Use Plexiglas to make the profiles of the classrooms. We cut the Plexiglas with the cutter and then attached it to the polystyrene by first making holes with the tip of a screwdriver and then applying the glue (polymax). Then make holes with the file on the Plexiglas where the wires pass.

10. Assemble the structure on a base: 4 columns support the 4 blocks of which the model is composed; insert the column into the base and then insert the corresponding floors into the column (the polystyrene atriums have a hole in the center to insert them into the columns)

11. Make the stairs that connect the various floors and those at the entrance to the school.

12. Solder the LED wires between the various atriums to connect them all together until they are attached to the Arduino.

13. Program the Arduino in such a way that by selecting the classroom number on a small keyboard, the LED lights up in the model corresponding to that classroom.

14. Decorate by inserting DAS saplings and the names of the various atriums.

In order to create the circuit use 2 LEDs strips for Arduino. Cut all the single LEDs (pay attention to cut the LEDs in the cuttable-copper part) and then solder them together at the necessary distance (distance between the two school rooms). Then connect the strips and the 4*4 keyboard to the Arduino as you can see in the circuit scheme. 

We haven’t solved the alimentation problem yet. If you connect to the Arduino the strips together pay attention to switch on one LED per time.

This is the code used to turn the LEDs on in each classroom.

With this code, you can light a classroom by pressing A, then the desired number of the classroom and then # to execute the command. This process can be done multiple times without lights turning off. You can cancel the command and turn off all the lights by pressing *. You can also select a different color by pressing a letter (B for red, C for green, D for blue) and the the desired amount of that color (0-255). Colors can be combined. This process needs to be done before pressing #.

To make the model look more realistic and comprenible we added some decorations:

• for the stairs we used cardboard. We cut the cardboard in stripes and glued them together with hot glue.
• the signboards of the toilettes are fotos that we downloaded and printed from the internet and glued on the plexiglass.
• the signboards of the lobbys are printed letters that we printed and glued on the lobby.
• the doors are made on the edge of cardboard, the inside part is made of laminating paper and handles are made of wire.
• the trees are made of das, we shaped them in a cone shape, then cut around them with scissors to make the branches and we painted them green.
• for the bushes we used das to make the shape and filled with paper mache to give volume. To make paper mache we wet journal paper in a water bowl, we squeezed it and we mixed it up with PVA glue and green paint, and let it dry.