Christina

This past week, I worked on the design presentation and report outline with the rest of the team. Our 40″ pool table arrived on Monday, so we finally had access to the table that we will use on demo day. We were able to take photos and accurately measure a random layout of objects of our demo table. I modified the computer vision object detection for this new pool table and ball setup. The object detection is measuring all of the balls needed for 9-ball pool, and I will work on improving the accuracy of the ball center detections. One major complication was the green pool ball against the green felt of the table, and I hope to continue testing this distinction especially as our lighting conditions change. In the next week, I hope to compare the physical measurements we took with a ruler to the CV’s perceived object locations. I will try to fine-tune the detection parameters to minimize the difference between the actual and perceived pool ball locations.

Harry

Last week, I was the presenter for our design presentation, so I spent a lot of time preparing, finalizing, and rehearsing the presentation. I started working on the design of our frame and how we will use the PVC parts to build our sturdy frame. I researched most of the hardware parts we will need for our camera and frame setup, and we have placed the orders for them. When the camera came in, I helped Christina integrate the CV program with the video camera input. Along with the others, I worked on the design slides and documentation for the report. In the next week, the parts will arrive at Home Depot, so I can start prototyping and building the frame setup.

Sam

This past Sunday, I accompanied the team at one of our most productive meetings. It was a very windy day but we found save haven in one of the giant auditoriums at Tepper. Harry proceeded to kill the presentation the next day — sighs, podiums, and all. Later in the week, our 40″ pool table arrived and I played around with it. After shooting a few balls and trying different types of shots, I realized that if we end up using the 40″ pool table for our final demo, the physics is much simpler. For starters, there is no ‘english’ (spin) really possible on the ball, which makes things simpler. Additionally, the ball has to be hit at a minimum speed, or the balls will ‘break’ like golf balls on a green, due to the manufacturing errors in the table (not a flat surface). All-in-all, learned a lot this week and hopefully can move forward. Next week, I will wrap up my code for the MVP, refactor, and possibly work on integration with CV.

TEAM

As a team, we polished up our design presentation. We met together the day beforehand to finalize all the details and clarify any remaining topics. Once we received the design presentation feedback, we had a candid discussion on what went well and the different ways we could improve our system design. We followed the presentation directions well and were very prepared for any potential questions on our design. However, there were places we should have added in more detail and explained our reasoning for our decisions.

After receiving presentation feedback, we met on Thursday to start drafting our design report. We began with a brainstorming session to enumerate the components and workflow of our system.

We then started outlining our report, adhering to the final project report template. We have already collaborated and discussed the major points for our paper, and we are on track to finish our report Monday.