DNC Protest Object

For this project, I decided to make a simple device that mocked the current practices of the United States Democratic Party. Those who have kept up with current political affairs, will tell you that the Democratic National Convention (DNC) have been acting shadily towards one of their potential candidates. The DNC have made it clear that they have no love for Bernie Sanders and have gone so far as erase his standings from voter polls. I believe that every candidate should have a fair chance in the races and that the DNCs actions have been cowardly and should be ridiculed, which is why I made this object.

I started by settling on an idea, originally I wanted to make a fake voting both but I soon found that I wouldn't have the time to assemble it before the assignment was due. After that I began to research political ballots and such and decided that making a survey was the way to go. I then researched the political candidates to make sure that my survey would have the most topical candidates on it.

I decided to make my device a box with an open bottom, which is similar to the last project I made. I wanted to dress up my survey with paint and such but soon realized that I lacked the paint and talent to pull this off. The most difficult part was getting all 4 switches hooked up to the board as each one had 3 cables running from it. I also then had to make sure that the correct switches were going to the correct candidates. Once it was all hooked up I had to do some testing and make sure that it was all functional.

All in all, I'm happy with how the object turned out. I believe that I got my message across pretty well and it is kind of fun to play with. I would have liked the design to be more compact and streamlined so I could have potentially taken it around and see how people responded to it. However, for the next project I'd certainly like to move away from cardboard boxes and into more innovative designs.

Technical Description

The device itself is a mock voter survey that represents the kind one might take after voting. The device asks the user to "vote" for their favorite candidate from a list, with each candidate pitted against Bernie Sanders. However, when/if the user ever tries to vote for Bernie Sanders, they are met with a buzzer sound and that vote goes unrecorded (note: due to technical difficulties this sound can't be heard in the video). At the end of the survey session, the votes for all the non-Sanders candidates can be collected, but mysteriously Bernie Sanders won't appear in the data at all, despite having the most likely chance of getting votes on the survey. This serves primarily as a blatant mockery of the DNC, but it also highlights just how easy voter suppression can be.

Functionally, the device is just a series of if statements that track which switch is which direction when. Each switch is set to two pins, one for left and one for right, and the pins are set up to collect a "vote" and put it in an array only once per switch until the device is reset with a button on the board. The code itself is clunky but gets the job done, and this probably marks my last time using MakeCode for this class as I find it's capabilities to limiting and it's interface frustrating.