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Team Status Report for Nov 6 2021

This week was a productive week for the team. Not only did we all individually make great progress on our components, but have started making steps towards integrating all three together. Most of the week was spent working on our individual components in parallel. For details on each component’s progress, please refer to the responsible team member’s weekly status report.

The chair sensor has been prototyped and tested, with promising results. In addition, the hardware connecting the XBee module and the arduino has been completed, and configurations are underway. On the software side, the Data Hub python code has been installed on a RPi 4, and updated to include the GPIO and serial libraries and functionality. For the web application, the backend has been connected to the database, deployed, and a public API endpoint has been published for Data Hub interaction.

In terms of our schedule, we are slightly behind, but have also realized that our original schedule was slightly ambitious. Despite being behind according to our initial gantt chart, we may still be able to complete integration and testing before Thanksgiving, as planned. This is mainly due to our underestimation of fabrication times, and overestimation of testing difficulty.

Next week, we hope to finish connecting the XBee modules, and complete one integration test, sending data from the chair to the data hub, and finally pushing data to the web app.

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William Foy’s Status Report for Nov 6 2021

This week I spent my time on to get the Xbee modules up and running. This was mostly spent configuring hardware to connect an Xbee to the Arduino Pro Mini. In order to program the Xbee with XCTU it has to have a serial interface. We discovered that we could program the Xbee through the Arduino. So if the Arduino is connected to a computer through the serial module and then the Arduino is connected to the Xbee, the Xbee can be programmed as long as the Arduino is running a blank sketch.

We ran into some challenges connecting the Xbee modules due to the non breadboard compatible pins. We had to wire wrap and solder some wires onto the 4 pins we needed on the Xbee. We then connected these pins to the Arduino (power, ground, tx, and rx). By the end of the week we were able to successfully have XCTU discover the Xbee through the Arduino and we can program it. I also worked a bit more on the chair sensor code to be more robust and correctly check occupancy every few seconds. We also ordered some breakout boards that allows the Xbee to be breadboard compatible, so we will use those once they arrive.

Going forwards we need to wire up another Xbee on the Raspberry Pi so that we can correctly configure the two Xbees on the same network and test the communication. We also need to ensure we are prepared for the demo this upcoming week. I think we should be good to show the chair sensor and possibly the RPi to website communication. We might try to get Xbee working by the demo too but that is undetermined.

I think I am making good progress and on schedule. Getting zigbee communication working between the Arduino and RPi is the last big hurdle which we should be able to accomplish this week. We will make a new schedule for the last few weeks based off of our current status. I think we are on track to have a functional product that meets our requirements by the end of the semester.