This week was a productive week for the myself and for the team. I spent the earlier half of the week drafting the Data Hub project code, making sure to focus on readability and modularity. The end result should be something that is portable and easy to maintain. In addition, I wrote unit tests for the python functions that I drafted, and ran them with PyTest.
I also was in charge of creating the data schemas that our components will interface with each other through. I used a protocol called Json Schema to define the chair-to-hub schema, as well as the hub-to-backend schema. Furthermore, I wrote validators for the schemas, which will take a json object and validate the data structure against the schema definition. I also tested these validators with PyTest.
Towards the end of the week, I paired up with Will Foy to get the chair sensor up and running. This was not part of the plan, but we saw that the sensor was the top priority of the week, and needed to be fabricated as soon as possible. As such, I helped Will in any way I could, but I was mindful to defer to his instruction, as this was his project component. Fortunately, together we got the chair sensor up and running on an actual chair, and initial testing shows that it can indeed detect a human sitting on the chair, which is promising.
Next week, I hope to set up a raspberry pi with the python code that I wrote, and wire up an XBee to it, and see if communication between the chair module and data hub is possible. While this is a simple task, I predict that uploading the code to the RPi, with properly managed dependencies, as well as making reliable hardware connections, will be easier said than done.