Changes
- We have decided to use copper foil tape for the circuitry of the board, letting us more easily integrate the detection subsystem with the movement subsystem.
Progress Pictures
- Holes in pieces + a ferrous nut that will go inside each piece.
Danié’s Status Report for 11/14
This week I worked mostly on the pieces and the planning of the board top. I created the full plans for the pieces, although the designs remain pencil-and-paper, but everything is laid out. Right now I am waiting for parts.
For the pieces, I drilled holes in them, found an appropriate material for the magnet to attach to, and am waiting for my order to keep working on it. Pics in the group report.
For the board top, I’m commissioning it from TechSpark woodshop and then drilling holes into it.
Group Status Report for 10/31
Risks
- Our own team deadline of November 23rd, when Tony and Danié meet for the construction of the board, is approaching and we still do not have demoable components. We are addressing this by making sure to keep in touch with each other so that no one falls behind.
Changes
- We may have to consider using a different microcontroller due to the complexity of the calculations we need to make, but if this is necessary it’s a simple re-tuning.
Schedule
- Minor changes to the schedule, rearranging tasks.
- A snapshot of our schedule can be viewed here.
Progress Pictures
- Dimensions for board after verifying the actual travel distance of our linear actuators.
Danié’s Status Report for 10/31
This week I paused work for the circuitry of the piece detection as I realized I needed to get the ball rolling on materials for the construction of the board asap. While I wait for stuff being ordered or made, I will continue to work on the circuitry. Specifically, I touched based with Tony and we made some new design desicions based on what we both have at the moment. We discussed the construction of the board top as well as constraints we must keep in mind when we put our subsystems together, and I have spent this week researching a bit more and preparing for putting orders in towards the construction of the board.
No updates to my schedule as of last week in terms of pushing anything back, but rather rearranging my tasks in order to pipeline them.
Group Status Update for 10/24
Risks
- Currently, one of our members has been MIA for weeks. He is tasked with the piece movement subsystem of the project and we are not entirely apprised of his progress, we only know he has been attempting to keep track of the linear actuators he ordered, but no further details on his progress. As time passes, the risk that the piece movement subsystem will not be complete becomes higher, and thus, to mitigate this risk, we will soon have to decide whether to cut this part from the project and proceed without him or not. If we were to do this, we would devise some way of informing the user where they need to manually move the opponent’s pieces to.
Changes
- Our design is mostly the same, with the changes detailed in our Design Review. The overall design remains the same, but the details of implementation for some parts have changed. In summary, they are:
- Now modifying existing chess pieces instead of 3D-printing our own
- Using magnets to orient the pieces on the board correctly
- Smaller board size to accommodate the length of affordable linear actuators.
Schedule
- A snapshot of our schedule can be viewed here.
Progress Pictures
- Multiplexer Testing Circuit:
Danié’s Status Update for 10/24
This week I have been working on the detection circuit since the multiplexer arrived. I am able to loop through the inputs and will soon scale it to use all 16 inputs, adjusting the resolution as needed. Once the 16-piece detection circuit is working on the breadboard, I will begin construction of the board top or construction of the pieces, depending on when the pieces ordered from Amazon arrived. I mention wooden pieces because, as of our design revision, we will now be modifying wooden chess pieces instead of 3D printing our own.
Below is an image of the arduino console detecting input from 3 “pieces”, where 14 and 15 were set to GND and 16 was set to an arbitrary voltage <5V:
I am behind our original schedule but proceeding well into the adjusted schedule.
Danié’s Status Update for 10/10
This week, I’ve procured everything necessary for the detector circuit minus a multiplexer. While I wait for that to arrive through the mail, I’ve been learning how to use the Dremel DigiLab 3D Slicer software to model our own pieces and print them in TechSpark. This is a simple circuit diagram of the detector circuit:
So far I’m still on schedule, and by next week I hope to have both the 3D printed pieces and a functioning prototype circuit.
Group Status Report for 10/3
Current risks:
- The current risk is we have taken a bit long to acquire parts, and are now a bit behind schedule. We are managing this by doing the things we can do without those parts ahead of time, this way we’ll still be on schedule.
Changes:
- We have had to change the specific actuators we were planning on using because of the costs, although it has taken time away from us in the form of extra research. Going forward we’ll keep this lesson and mind and research something thoroughly before deciding on it.
No changes to the schedule have been necessary.
Danié’s Status Update for 10/3
This week I settled on working with an Arduino and have gotten reacquainted with programming it so that once the circuit for detection the pieces is wired up, it will be easy to fine tune.
By next week, I hope to have that circuit built and tested and get ready to move onto the board top.
I am still personally on-schedule, but I will not be if I don’t pick up my pace and meet my expected deliverables for next week.