This week, I finalized decisions on which hardware parts to use, specifically the stepper motors and servomotor. As a team, we placed orders for these parts as well as many others. I did research on how to power our project, such as how to power the Pi and how the pi would connect to the motors. As a team, we found a rather simple solution for both, as the motors can be attached easily to the motor shield of the Pi and a simple cable can be bought to power the Pi from an outlet. In addition, I created the parts spreadsheet for our team, which keeps track of the parts we’ve ordered and received, how much we spend on each part, our remaining budget, and other things. I worked on the team’s design presentation for Monday, and specifically I contributed by creating a block diagram for the design review. I also started working on an initial draft of the image bank we plan to use for some of our testing metrics. I did research into the best way to test our robot’s ability to choose color, and concluded a system that involves testing for the nearest HSV value.
My progress is on schedule. For the next week, we will finalize the image bank we will use for testing. Once our parts arrive, I will start testing and experimenting with the RPi libraries for Python, and begin writing code to control the motors. As a team, we will also begin assembling our frame and gantry system once the parts for it arrive.