Hexagon Table

Our goal for this project was to create a table that would detect touch and light up individual hexagons based on the location of the touch.

Our inspiration for this table was a video that made the table using a CNC machine. Because we were short of time, we were unable to use our CNC machine, and as a result we needed to come up with a different idea. This is what led to our multiple prototypes and failures.

We went through multiple prototypes testing what would and wouldn’t work. When we first started the project we tried testing out the sensor in many different ways such as wood and epoxy to see if it would activate. We later learned that it was just that the sensor had to be still and attached to something for it to sense through a material such as wood or epoxy. We tested this by hot gluing it to wood to see if it would sense through it and embedding the sensor in epoxy. They both proved successful.

Secondly, we tried using the laser cutter to cut out and fill in a single tile with epoxy. We ended up printing that wrong because we used wood on the outside of the epoxy we poured so light couldn’t shine through it. We then used a separate mold to hold the wood and the epoxy and created a single hexagon which worked just as we wanted and was a perfect prototype that is still working. We added a touch sensor to activate the LEDs which worked great.

Many of the learning experiences we went through was by learning the hard way.

In the end we didn’t use the CNC machine and we ended up using the laser cutter to cut out three layers of wood and glue them together which gave us more leeway while connecting the wires.

We were able to create a solid prototype of our table in a smaller version correctly wired except one. The touch sensors work and the LEDs are easily programmable. The table doesn’t need a computer anymore.

I was very happy with the way the project turned out!

Overall the project went well and we succeeded in making a product similar to what our original idea was. In the future we want to make the actual table using the CNC machine and we will learn from our struggles in this project.

Repository: https://github.com/Blas-U/HexaThegonTabler