- Bill:
I researched and purchased the load cell sensors and the load cell amplifier that will be used for detecting whether a cup is on the platform or not. Turns out the load cell cannot be used by itself, as the signal is too weak, and it is also in analog. We are purchasing a load cell amplifier that will amplify the signal, as well as convert the analog signal to a digital signal.
My plan for next week is to help design the scaffolding for Bartendo, and I will help purchase the parts necessary for the scaffolding. Also, I am currently on track with the work that needs to be done.
- David:
During the last week, I mainly helped research for liquid level sensors and load sensor. We as a team spent some time working on the proposal presentation. Besides helping the team, I did some research in PostgreSQL. I have had some experience with SQL previously, but haven’t used it in real application. Since I will be in charge of the database in later time of the schedule, I spent some free time this week to refresh my memory on using database systems.
My plan for next week would be to finish the design of scaffolding and determine the basic hardware requirements of the system as a team. Personally, I would like to start testing the pump for the flow rate of the different liquids, if we can actually decide what pump we would eventually use. Otherwise, I would like to start building some prototype of the scaffolding of the system.
In general, I am on track of the schedule.
- Connor:
This past week I worked on purchasing the Raspberry Pi’s and their accessories, such as micro SD cards and power cords. While I did do research on the pumps, we as a team wanted to a little more research before we ended up making a final purchase. We will send in our order for this upcoming Monday in hopes of receiving later the pumps later in the week and complete testing.
Here is one of pumps that we will end up buying:
Next week, I would like to have helped finish the design of the scaffolding for the product. I will also begin working with the Raspberry Pi to test the pumps to see if they are accurate enough for our use case. While next week will include both finally purchasing the pumps and testing, I am still on track with the schedule.
Overall, we did a good job at purchasing parts for our project and currently are on track with our schedule. Technically speaking, the only change that we have to make is to continue the task of “Order Pumps and Liquid Level Sensors for Testing” into this upcoming week. In general, we will have to focus on doing most of our research for parts ordering earlier in the week (Sunday through Tuesday) in order to be able to have our purchased parts shipped in later in the week.
One thing that we need to decide on is the physical positioning of the bottles. Will they be upright or inverted? This will determine the kind of components we need to extract the liquids from the bottles and the design of the scaffolding for the devices. This poses as the biggest risk that we have to date. However, we feel that we can manage this risk well because we are testing to see if the pumps are the best solution. If they are not, we will investigate other options, such as a valve system with the bottles being inverted.