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Team Status Report for November 15

This week we are on track and focused on successfully completing our demo. We worked with presenting partially virtually, but the demo sessions went well. We met our goal for what we wanted to show: a function Tesseract, a proof of concept for the pin selector, and an early design of the base. The main goal was to show how the wheel will raise/lower the pins. The group spent most of the week together for the demo, but this coming week will continue again working on the separate components. Towards the end of the week, the goal is early integration of testing the mapping code with the functioning pin selector.

There needs to be continued work for editing the Raspberry Pi code over CMU wifi, but it is functioning with other methods, so this is not a critical issue at the moment. We will be printing early designs of the top of the embosser and the base.

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Abby’s Status Report for Nov 15

This week we were focused on our demo. We laid out a presentation and practiced to ensure we would remain in time. I continued work on the embosser and started work machining better pins for our device. We will most likely need to put an order for wires in if we can’t find enough in the TechSpark scrap bins, but so far we have found enough. With the HAT, this week I will be focused on incorporating and running all three servos and soldering the pins for the HAT. Bella and I will continue to work on printing the rest of our 3D components and work towards a complete first prototype.

This week we will reflect on how the demo went and where we can improve presentation strategies for our final one.

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Bella Woodard’s Status Report for November 8

This week I created sketches and preliminary Fusion designs for the handle and encasing of our device.

Handle Grip and Encasing Designs:
[Link]

My progress is on schedule. Next week, I plan to select the most suitable design approach and finalize the Fusion model for the device base. Additionally, I aim to order an uninterrupted power supply for our Pi 5 and begin integrating the battery to move toward a cordless design.

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Team Status Report for November 8

This week we are on track and focused on our goal for what we want to show in our demo. There is no design change at the time. For our demo, our goal is show a functioning Tesseract read a series of label images. For the mechanical side, we will show the functioning pin selector and the first half of the wheel mechanism. We started splitting the work with Bella and Francesca continuing to work in the lab and Abby working in TechSpark. We additionally work towards creating a final design for the handle of the device, figuring out the best orientation of the components.

There were some issues with the Raspberry Pi booting with CMU wifi, but when brought home, it functioned with home wifi. A possible issue could be ensuring the device will continue to function without wifi. The 3D prints (about a third of the device) only took about 90 minutes to print, so there will be no issue with timing when needing to create multiple iterations of the prototype.

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Abby’s Status Report for Nov 8

This week I focused on the embosser. I booted the raspberry pi and worked with running it with one servo. We ran into an issue where the mail room sent a notification that we received a part, but it was not there. This limits us to testing with 1 servo for now, but the HAT piece will soon be here. This doesn’t significantly put us back. We are on track otherwise.

I additionally printed out the first three parts of the base. This will complete the selection wheel and prototyped pins. The goal for the physical component for the demo is to have the pin selector working smoothly. This week, I will complete the demo and continue printing out the rest of the embosser.

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Bella Woodard’s Status Report for November 1

This week I have mainly introduced myself with Inventor and Fusion softwares. As well as beginning sketches for the design of the handle and encasing of our device. My progress is on schedule, and I hope to complete the Fusion design for the bas of our device. This is my priority, for the goal is to have it complete for the interim demo. If that is complete, I hope to order an uninterrupted power supply for our PI 5, and begin integrating

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Abby’s Status Report for Nov 1

This week I focused on ordering final components needed to complete the demo. In addition, I started sending 3D prints to TechSpark to be completed. I continued to work on the CAD for other aspects of the design. I altered our design a little bit. Instead of a cam rotating to act as the “printing” mechanism, I moved to change this to a circle with a small cut out. By making it a circle instead of a cam, I hope to keep the design more balenced and easier to design and print out.

We are on track for our goals of what we want to show for the demo. By the end of this week, I hope to have the servos running with the RaspberryPi and a completed first mock-up of the embosser.

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Francesca’s Status Report for November 1

This week, as mentioned in the team report,  I continue to experiment with Tesseract, which is important as it’s the main way in which we hope to use OCR to read an image and convert it to braille. The data sets I was experimenting with last week has proved difficult to use in terms of cursive script, so I have been trying to find other, more helpful data sets to experiment with. I will also begin to venture into the real world, taking images of actual labels (medicine bottles, prescription bottles, cereal boxes, etc) to test with Tesseract. I believe my progress is where it needs to be.

In terms of software, this week I will also begin to write the logic to “convert” each English recognized character into actuator pin movement that embosses the braille lettering. For instance, here’s the letter A in Braille:

Logically, I need to tell Pin 1 to engage, Pin 2 to disengage, and Pin 3 to disengage, and emboss the first column. Then, I need to have the tape move over slightly, and tell Pin 1 disengage, Pin 2 to disengage, and Pin 3 to disengage. This is the process for each character. I will think thoughtfully about how to easily modularize this process in my code.

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Team Status Report for November 1

This week, our work has slowed slightly, but we are still on track! On Monday, Francesca did not attend class, since she was attending the AIMBE Public Policy Institute, which provided interesting insights regarding the ethics of bringing a device similar to ours to market. Abby and Bella participated in ethics day, and had great discussion about potential pitfalls of our product, especially how errors, whether through misprinting or mechanical errors, harms the patient/client.

Our team was able to order the components necessary for us to build our final project, which is very exciting! Abby has continued to iterate upon our CAD design files, and is planning to begin 3D printing components this coming week. Upon printing some components, we will begin to have a physical, tactile representation of our work, and more easily make any needed tweaks once we have it in our hands. Francesca has continued to test Tesseract– she has had some difficulty with the data sets she chose last week, specifically with those that include cursive, but continues to make progress and will research more photo or document sets for our team to try. Bella was unfortunately sick on Wednesday but continued working on our designs from home.

We have not identified any new risks this week that were not previously identified. No changes to the design were made this week, but may occur next week as mentioned, depending largely on the results of our 3D prints. No updates to the schedule were identified.

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Team Status Report for October 25

Some risks that have come up are our motors not being strong enough to run the device. We are first hoping to have lightweight components, but is the need arises, we can order stronger motors. Of now, there are no changes to our design from the update from last week. We will continue forward as we begin to test the OCR. We are moving towards the deadline of the demo in two weeks.