Team Update
Currently, the most significant risk that we foresee is our IR sensors due to their fragility and lack of reliability. We have tried to mitigate this risk by making their positions permanent after testing, and by writing software that discards outlying values in time and position. Another significant risk is the stability of our robot. With our added second layer and our tall track for our camera, the height of our robot may contribute more to its instability, and cause issues such as photo blur or lack of durability. Our approach to this problem is to cover the majority of our wires and hardware components so that they will be protected when the roomba is moving. Additionally, we will secure the legs of the tripod more permanently and securely so that the entire structure is more stable.
The overall approach of our existing design remains, aside from a few detail changes. First, we were originally sending data using USB to USB-C between our raspberry pi and Arduino, but we recently switched to sending signals using GPIO pins, because it is provides more efficient and reliable data for us to use. Second,
Our Gantt chart remains the same. It’s attached here for easy reference:
Adriel
This week I worked on refining the design, laser cutting, and assembling the final structure of our robot. I have also wired up the majority of all components (logic level shifters, motor drivers, Arduinos, RPi, etc.) within our robot. I also set up some example code for the communication between Raspberry Pi and Arduinos using the GPIO pins as a framework for Cornelia and Mimi to use.
I am currently on schedule.
This week I hope to have everything prepared for our demo on Monday, and plan to make adjustments as they become necessary.
Mimi
This week I worked on installing new ir sensors, cutting pvc pipes for holding up our second level on our roomba, putting together the track for the camera, defining our logic for moving based on image optimization, debugging our code, and beginning to test our metrics against the success values we set in our design doc.
I am currently on schedule.
This next week I hope to finish testing, after which I will begin making changes to meet any tests we did not meet.
Cornelia
This week I worked with Mimi to finalize the algorithm for photo optimization. Since we received the motor to move the camera up and down and Adriel was able to connect it to the entire system, we were able to code the roomba to move backwards based on face and image margins as well as moving the camera up and down on a track for fine adjustments. We spent a lot of the week testing and making more adjustments, debugging our code and making sure our robot will perform for final in-lab demo next week. We also had our reading discussion on Wednesday, so I spent some time reviewing my notes from the reading since we completed that a while ago so I could be prepared for the discussion.
According to our Gantt chart which has remained unchanged, I’m on schedule.
This upcoming week I hope to continue testing our robot with Mimi and Adriel. We will be taking our robot to Wiegand Gym and testing it in those specific lighting and WiFi conditions.