Monday, March 14
On Monday, March14th, a COVID-19 outbreak in Shenzen meant our keycap PCBs would not arrive on time. All production and shipping companies had ceased operation the morning our PCBs were meant to ship. With no keycap PCB, we would not be able to demonstrate a working prototype at the symposium.The team had to scramble to source an alternative solution by the end of the week, March 18th. Monday was spent contacting numerous PCB manufacterers in Ontario with an absurd request to manufacture and ship our PCBs in 3 days. A hopeful contact was established with a locally
based PCB manufacterer in Markham named Camptech. Last minute PCB revisions were made to simplify the manufacturing process and we sent our designs to Camptech. Tuesday morning we were notified that our last minute plan might just work.
Camptech agreed to manufacture our newly revised boards in 3 days provided we can pick them up in person.
With the hope that our PCBs would arrive functional on Thursday, the remainder of the week was spent preparing our presentation for Friday's symposium. We finished our symposium poster (pictured below). As well as our marketing video.
Thursday, March 17th
Thursday morning, our team split up to work on the final pieces of our project. Two members travelled to Markham to pick up our keycap PCBs, while two members remained on campus to assemble the 3D printed keycaps and acrylic covers.
After getting these final pieces of the puzzle at long last, final assembly of the project prototype was underway. Here are some pictures of the process.
The 3D printed housing:
3D printed keycap:
Ribbon cables for the serial bus:
Working keycap display using emergency keycap PCB solution:
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