These past weeks since the last status report have been very productive. Firstly, we all met as a team and had hot pot one more time to collect more data. For this data collection, we focused on putting all combinations of ingredients together into the pot. By this I mean, our pot has 3 strainers, and so potentially, people could place 3 ingredients in simultaneously. Thus, our CV algorithm should be able to identify 3 ingredients at once. We still need to do some more testing, next time with the strainers, so that the CV can detect which ingredient is going where. We also looked at all the parts we had ordered, and started to see how things will actually connect, outside a model. We also did realize that we have to change our design around slightly and have 2 Arduinos instead of just 1. The reason for this change is the CNC shield completely covers our original Arduino, so we can’t get to any input pins. We tried to do some research to see if we could reuse some of the slots on the shield that aren’t being used, since we have 3 motors but there are 4 sections, but we couldn’t find any demonstration of this. Thus, we decided to switch our design a little and have 2 Arduinos, one for the motors and one for everything else, and they will interface through the Jetson Nano. I also did a lot of the circuitry work that we will need. It isn’t the final circuit, since we likely will have 3 smaller circuits near the base of our strainer, but I used this for testing out the code I wrote and the circuit itself. I’ve switched around the order in which I’m doing things, so I’ve focused mainly on the LEDs, push button, and temperature sensors, since I still need to do more research into how exactly our motors are going to work. With the LEDs, I have encoded 5 states: solid green for when food is ready to be put in, cascading green for when the CV detects food is being put in, flashing red for when the strainers are in motion, solid red for when it is cooking, and solid yellow for when food is ready to be taken out. I also encoded this in two ways, I have one that is time based, since some of these will be based on time, and one that is push button based, since we will also need that. See the team report for the videos of the LEDs.
I think I have caught up any progress that I was a little behind on with the last post, especially since I have flipped the schedule around a little. I am confident that I have the LEDs, push buttons, and temperature sensors working, and code that will control what they do, so now I can spend the next week focusing on the motors.
In the next week, I will do more research into how exactly we need to set up the motors, and the circuitry needed to run them. I will also do more research into the code needed to interface between the Arduino and Jetson Nano, since we are getting close to the point where we need to start some integration.