This week I finished building the entire exterior shell of our project. I had to make some adjustments to the size of the box and thus had to rebuild portions of the bin. These adjustments were made to accommodate the necessary height needed for our camera to see the entire sensor platform and for our mechanism to properly fit with enough space. Part of completing the exterior involved cutting out a 10×10 inch hole in the top and attaching a lid to hinges for the user to open and close the bin. I mounted a contact switch that closes when the lid is shut which will be used to communicate with our Jetson to begin classification. I also mounted the sliding mechanism to the box and began testing it with Jessica. Our initial tests showed we were able to get a “round-trip” speed of roughly 1.4 seconds. We hope to improve on this as much we can. I also attached the sliding box to the sliding mechanism, which will allow for the items of waste to be pushed into the correct bin. For ease of working with and adjusting our sensors and mechanism, I have not attached the side walls to the bin yet and probably will not until the final demo.
My progress is on track as all the necessary components (mechanism, sliding box, etc.) have been attached to the exterior shell. The box is finished and I will continue to make small adjustments as needed.
In the next week, I plan to work with my group on creating a presentation for our interim demo. I will also be helping my group integrate and adjust the sensors to the exterior, and will do more tests on the mechanism speed.