This week, we were able to work more on each of our individual parts. Michael researched security involving AWS communications, Alex Li worked on receiving NFC signals with the Raspberry Pi, and Alex began to troubleshoot the motor and lock combo. We also met in person to discuss future workloads and plans.
One critique of our design that was brought up was the unintended additional latency and redundancy of the Arduino Uno in our design. This week, we made significant process in detecting an NFC test card and an NFC chip in an Android device with the NFC Shield module and Raspberry Pi alone. This discovery has allowed us to cut the Arduino Uno from our design, which will hopefully help us better meet latency requirements and keep our final housing design small and lightweight. It also puts us closer to a potential MVP, involving receiving an NFC signal from the Shield, routing it to AWS with the Raspberry Pi, and then requesting it back from AWS.
Next week, we plan to finish the remaining parts of the MVP, which would involve finishing up the code connecting the Raspberry Pi to AWS and from the Raspberry Pi to the locking mechanism. We will also try to find a locking mechanism solution that will work for our current situation.