Category: Alex’s Status Reports

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.

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.

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.