Day 5

Day 5 - Notes & Details:

To me, the fifth day of the residency felt like a day of two very distinct halves — an inspiring, story-driven morning that set the right energy, followed by an afternoon of focused execution that brought us genuinely close to a working product for the first time.

The first block ran until 11:30 and was honestly one of the more memorable parts of the entire residency. We started with the story of the M19 project — an initiative by the Makers Asylum team where they manufactured 10,000 face shields during the pandemic, which was a powerful reminder of what rapid prototyping can look like when the stakes are real and the urgency is genuine. That was followed by a storytelling and pitching session led by Richa mam, where we explored how to communicate ideas in a way that actually captures people's attention. It was not just about having a good project but about being able to make someone else feel why it matters — something we will need when we present Project Vector.

11:30 marked the start of our hands-on work and we picked up right where Day 4 left off, continuing the soldering of the piezo electric sensors onto the PCB board until lunch. Post lunch was arguably the most satisfying moment of the entire week — we ran final component tests and both the piezo sensors and the WS2812B LED rings responded correctly and consistently, which confirmed that our circuits and soldering from the previous two days had held up. Seeing the LED ring light up and the piezo register a clean hit reading on the serial monitor was a genuine milestone.

Assembly, however, proved to be trickier than expected. Wire management became the primary obstacle — the volume of wires across 12 pads created routing and spacing challenges that we were not fully able to resolve within today's session. We have flagged this with Dakshat sir and plan to work through the assembly with his guidance tomorrow, which we are confident will get the full system together and functional for a final test run.