This week each of us focused on getting our preliminary setup down so that we can start to collaborate much more this up coming week. Zach worked on interfacing with the HERE API, and Colin worked on setting up the RPi along with all of the peripherals that we will be using. Our goal is to walk some routes next week and gather the location data along the way in order to have some real data and to test the HERE API out with. We decided that our first goal will be to have the ability for the device to correctly navigate routes without re-routing. This offers us three advantages, the first being that it will be easier to develop without having to worry about re-routing at first. The second advantage is that we can quickly develop this due to the fact that re-routing will be the only reason that we will need to talk to the internet, so we do not need to focus time on the wireless communication aspect. Due to the fact that we can cache the route ahead of time we can connect the device to a WiFi network, download the route data from the HERE API, and then test the route out offline. The third advantage has to do with risk mitigation in that we will be able to reduce the scope of the project to only having to be connected to the internet at the beginning of the route process in case we cannot get the wireless communication to work over the cellular data network. An example of how this would be used would be that the user has to load the route into the device before they leave their house.
Due to the interim demo coming up quickly in a week or two, we would like to have some sort of working example of the main functionality which would be navigating based on the GPS/IMU output. This is what is driving us to our decision to not focus on the re-routing for now, and hopefully after next week we can have a good demo.