Team Update
Currently, the most significant risk that we foresee is our IR sensors due to their 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. During our in-lab demo, the robot still got really close to subjects. We have added many redundant checks, but this still remains an issue. It never touches subjects, but gets fairly close. Another significant risk is the stability of our robot. We have mitigated this by ditching the tripod and switching to a wooden structure approach.
Our design changed slightly while we were preparing for the in-lab demo. There are now only 2 IR sensors at each of the 6 locations – this is because many of our IR sensors broke and the height of 3 sensors stacked on top of one another was less stable. To still have a checking system and discard outliers, we are comparing current values with values from one previous iteration – only if both meet our condition do we determine that the IR sensors are being triggered. In addition, we have reduced our thermal sensors down to just 1. Although both work, we decided we didn’t need the one that faces the back. If we move back to adjust the margins in the frame, we don’t need to know if it’s a human – the robot should stop moving back if anything triggers the distance sensors. We now have 3 Arduinos total (2 of the Arduinos for the 12 IR sensors, 1 of the Arduinos for the LCD screen, motor, and thermal camera sensor), connected to the RPi by GPIO pins.
Our Gantt chart remains the same. It’s attached here for easy reference:
Adriel
This week I worked on completing the final structure of the robot (excluding the supporting structure that was previously the tripod). I assisted in testing and verification of the robot in preparation for our final demo. I also made some progress on creating content for our final presentation slides.
I am currently on schedule.
This week I hope to have our poster, final slides, and additional testing completed.
Mimi
This week I worked on completing our structure for our final in-lab demo, debugging our code, and testing our metrics against the success values we set in our design doc. We also redesigned the base of our roomba which we will build for the public demo. This week I also worked on our slides and content for the final presentation this coming week.
I am currently a little bit behind schedule, because I haven’t finished testing yet as we are still making changes to the structure of our robot. I will make this up this week by going in to lab outside of class to do so once we build our final structure.
This next week I hope to help finish our structure for the public demo, continue working on our final presentation, make our poster for the public demo, and finish testing.
Cornelia
At the beginning of the week, we all worked together on testing our robot before our final in-lab demo on Monday. After the demo went smoothly, we finally received our barreljack-to-USB connectors to power the Arduinos separately from the Raspberry Pi. We also purchased wood to create the vertical structure of our robot. For the rest of the week, I worked on the final presentation slides for next week.
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 still need to take our robot to Wiegand Gym and test it in those specific lighting and WiFi conditions, especially now that we know which section of the gym we will be in for the public demo. In addition, I will be preparing to give our final presentation on Wednesday and working on our poster for the public demo.