Week of Mar 23 – Mar 30

Administrivia

Had to work on and turn in the second ethics assignment.

Project

This week I worked on a few different things to help get the project ready for our midpoint demo next week:

1. IR: Finished the IR transmitter and receiver circuits enough for the demo. I have come to realize that a PCB is not as expensive as I originally thought, and would make the manufacturing of the cars go much faster. Additionally, I did as many circuit optimizations as I could improve the distance for reception of IR pulses, and it seemed that 8ft was the best I could get with goo accuracy. I have some ideas as to some high level changes I could make that might have some benefits. I will explore these after the midpoint demo.
2. Frame and assembly: I changed the designs for the car so that the following issues will no longer be a problem:
   1. The motor housing slots were about an 1/8″ too tight, so I need to increase the spacing of those.
   2. I can narrow down on the width of the battery base and rpi base parts to reduce weight and complexity.
   3. Should remove the outer hexagons of the honeycomb heat sink as they get covered up by the battery base anyway.
   4. Move the Camera housing stands outward so they don’t cover the output ports of the battery packs.

I also assembled most of one car so that we will be ready to demo on Wednesday:

 

Scheduling

I am on track for my tasks

New Schedule
Dates	Task
Feb 4 – Feb 6	Come up with a first draft of the bill of materials for three cars
Feb 6 – Feb 8	Started design of RFID and IR circuits
Feb 8 – Feb 15	Started design the physical layout of a car
Feb 15 – Feb 22	Finish first draft of circuit designs
Feb 22 – Feb 25	Design the PCB that goes in the car
Feb 25 – Feb 28	Find appropriate battery and power system parts
Feb 28 – Mar 3	Work on preparing for the design review presentation and report
Mar 3 – Mar 9	Finish first draft of 3D model for the car
Mar 17 – Mar 19	Assemble frame.
Mar 19 – Mar 25	Build IR circuits, get started on RFID and Xbox controller and assemble 2 cars.
Mar 25 – Mar 31	Finish the IR circuits so that they are mountable. Prepare for midpoint demo.
Mar 31 – Apr 4	Optimize the RFID scanner, make third car.
Apr 4 – Apr 9	Slack

Deliverables for Next Week:

1. PCB design for IR circuits.
2. Prepare for demo.