Category: Weekly Status Reports

Andrew’s Status Report for 10/18

This week I continued to work with SpirePDF. I was having trouble with the parsing and the conversion of the uploaded PDFs. After testing it to see how well it could handle different diagrams and texts, some files resulted in giving inconsistent SVG outputs. I have been exploring other possible workarounds and alternative tools that we can maybe use in the future. The challenge this coming week would be to get the pipeline fully working from the web upload to the G-code generation.

The goal next week would be starting to connecting everything from upload to sending commands. I’ll also work on improving the website feedback so users can see upload and conversion status in real time. Once that’s working, we can start doing full integration tests with the hardware.

I’m a little behind schedule due to some parser troubleshooting, but with the design work settled, I should be able to catch up next week.

Alex’s Status Report for 10/18

This week was mainly focused on system design. I spent lot of my time attempting to integrate feedback from the design presentation, and incorporate that into the design document. One such example is the wheels that we now need to put back in the design.  I did a lot of research and found some possible implementations that would keep us barely in budget. I personally worked on the system architecture and system implementation sections of the document. This meant that I had to spend a lot of time figuring out everything we hadn’t quite gotten to yet, meaning I had a lot less time to work on the motors. I also ordered a lot of the miscellaneous pieces for the gantry system.

Next week will be a big one for me. I now have all of the parts and pieces I need to get the motors on the gantry working, so I’ll spend most of the week working on those. I need to get the Arduino talking to the motors and moving them accurately, and controlling that movement with the Raspberry Pi.

I’m a little behind schedule due to the backlog of design work, but with a forgiving schedule, I should be able to get back on track quickly.

Team Status Report for 10/18

This week’s focus for us was to incorporate the feedback we received from the design presentation. We decided to refine our system design. The significant thing that we decided to change was adding the wheels back into our gantry design so our gantry can move horizontally. Before this week, we had taken out the wheels since we had a budget constraint. After some research, we potentially found a more affordable option by using a premade wagon base.

Progress was made on both software and hardware this week as well. On the software side, we continued to work on the file upload and parsing. We were able to continue testing the PDF conversion to G-code. On the hardware side, the part orders were finalized and  we began preparing for motor setup and control testing. Most of the ordered components have arrived. As a result, next week will focus heavily on system integration.

We plan to get the motors running. We will also begin integrating the software upload with the hardware control system to start full end-to-end testing. While we’re slightly behind schedule due to the design revisions, but hopefully the updated plan puts us in good position to catch up quickly.

Part A was written by Alex

Our project has the potential to create impact on a global scale. For one, it has potential for use in any academic institution around the world. The technology would be easily adaptable and can theoretically transcribe any PDF, meaning regardless of language or location, it would still work. It is also cheaper and more transportable than the systems it replaces, like classroom projectors. It also integrates well with whiteboards or chalkboards, which are common around the world. We also hope to make it easy to use, meaning anyone, even those with limited technical knowledge should be able to make use of it.

Part B was written by Ethan

The project at a glance does not seem to have any major cultural considerations, but even at a small scale any sort of automation can have a cultural impact as to some extent, someone’s job is being done by a machine. Our intentions with the project is not to automate someone’s job, but instead be a tool to help teachers, presenters, and companies focus on the important parts involving putting text or diagrams on a whiteboard, getting the their point across and having the content being easily editable.

From a larger perspective this project strengthens the wider movement of automation in many aspects of industry. The subject of automation is still quite divisive to many, and our project further encourages using machines and to an extent, robots, in front of a very impressionable group, children.

Part C was written by Andrew

From an environmental standpoint, our gantry will be drawing directly on whiteboards and other reusable surfaces, in classrooms and meeting spaces, so that means there’s no need to use paper copies of diagrams, which helps reduce paper waste over time. The hardware also runs on low power with the Raspberry Pi and Arduino using potentially less energy than a projector would. We also will be 3D printing some of our own parts in Techspark which helps limit shipping and packaging waste.

Ethan’s Status Report for 10/18

This week was once again a slower week in terms of personal progress due to being right after the design presentations. However, the feedback from the presentations was valuable. This motivated the work I did this week which included ordering of gantry parts, ideating a new, less expensive wheel based system for the gantry stand, and completing the Design Report.

Previously the team scrapped the wheels to due the cost for our original design being too high, but the new design uses a pre-fabed, low cost metal wagon that we are going to modify (more details in this weeks team report). Therefore, I will have to modify the CAD to account for the changes to the design once we get them finalized and approved by the teaching staff.

This sets me up to start 3D printing parts and assembling the gantry the week after break. Additionally, with the changes to the gantry stand, I may start ordering the stand parts and modifying the CAD if the feedback from the teaching staff about the change is positive.

Andrew’s Status Report for 10/04

This week, I implemented the file upload functionality for our Flask web interface, which is currently hosted locally on the Raspberry Pi. The site can now accept PDF uploads for processing. I also began experimenting with SpirePDF for parsing and converting PDFs into vector formats that will later feed into our toolpath generation pipeline.

By the end of next week, I plan to integrate the PDF parsing results with the SVG-to-G-code conversion flow. I’ll also work on improving the front-end feedback (status messages after upload) and maybe even look up some deployment options such as Gunicorn for non-local hosting.

I realized SpirePDF has some limitations with complex image PDFs, so I will need to do additional testing. This might set me a little behind schedule.

Team Status Report for 10/4

Unfortunately, as we have yet to receive feedback from the design presentation, we weren’t able to make an adjustments to our design plans this week. We did add some items to our BOM, such as power supply units. Because we removed wheels from our BOM, these costs can be easily absorbed into our remaining budget.

Our main risks going forward are centered in the structural section and motor control section. For structure, it’s unclear if our current setup will fully support the gantry weight, but we are planning on mitigating this risk by building and testing it early enough that we have time to add additional supports. For motor control, we may need some more parts or attachments to make the motors function correctly. Again, we are mitigating this issue by finding these flaws as early as next week.

Next week the team will complete the design report, website, and CAD, and will work on motor control, planning, and construction.

Alex’s Status Report for 10/4

I started this week by working on the design presentation slides, updating the requirements and solution slides after I helped the team make some major design changes to the wheels (by removing them). Later in the week, I received most of the parts necessary to start work on controlling the motors. To that end I got the Raspberry Pi working and started wiring the stepper motors and the Arduino/CNC shield. I also ordered a few more parts from our BOM that would continue to help me get this all set up.

This puts me a bit behind schedule, but I remain confident that I’ll be able to fairly easily catch back up, as there is some leeway in getting the motor control to work.

Next week, I will work on the design document to help fully flesh out our plan. I also hope to finish setting up and evaluating the motors to make sure we can control them well using the Pi and Arduino.

Ethan’s Status Report for 10/4

This week was a slower week in terms of personal progress, due to a variety of factors. One such factor was that I was expecting feedback on our design presentation to incorporate into my structural design and design report, but I have not received feedback yet. As a result, this has caused some delay in my part ordering, structural design changes, and design report writing.

Despite those challenges I was able to start some work on two of the three tasks above. Firstly, I was able to put in some part orders for parts for the gantry. The gantry is an existing design (https://www.instructables.com/4xiDraw/) that we are going to attach to our uniquely designed stand. Therefore, the parts needed are very unlikely to change. Secondly, I was able to start work on the design report by working on the sections I have been in charge of thus far: the structure. This includes the implementation plan as well as the overall design. This work was minimal as I don’t want to get too far without feedback from the course staff after our presentation.

Looking forward to next week, I hope to get the material I ordered and start the assembly of the gantry. This includes planning out 3D printed parts and fully fleshing out the structure implementation plan which goes along with finishing the design report. This differs a little bit from our original task distribution which had me working more on the software side. However, as the project has progressed and I’ve done most of the work on the structure, I have been leading that portion and Andrew has been working more on the software.

Andrew’s Status Report for 9/27

At the beginning of the week, I focused on the project website. I worked on setting it up and started developing the upload functionality so that files can be submitted through the site. I got the upload feature to work so it should be ready to connect to the Raspberry Pi once testing for image to vectors begins.

I will be presenting for the team on Monday, so later in the week, I shifted towards preparing for our upcoming presentation. I worked on refining the slides and practicing my talking points. I also reviewed the overall presentation to make sure it flows smoothly.

I am currently on schedule with my tasks. Next week, I plan to test the upload feature with the Raspberry Pi and continue expanding the website with project content. I also plan to incorporate feedback from the presentation into our design work. When the motors arrive, I plan on also helping out with the integration.

Alex’s Status Report for 9/27

This week I focused mainly on the design of our robot. I researched parts to help Ethan with his CAD design and helped make decisions on the form of our project. I worked with the BOM to fit everything we could within budget constraints. I also ordered  some of the preliminary parts, like the motors, Pi, and necessary pieces to make them work. I started the setup of the Pi, but due to the lack of an SD card, it couldn’t be completed. Finally, I helped work on the design slides for our presentation next week.

This is slightly behind schedule, as I had planned on gaining access to motors this week, but I worked ahead a little on other parts, so I should get back on track easily. Next week I should have a full setup to begin working with the motors. I plan on setting up the motor control software suite we planned on using, and verifying that everything is functional.