Author: mmandal

With all of the LED additions to the modules, recording all of our testing for the final demo video is going to be much easier! We have made plans for exactly what situations we are going to record to show off the many features of our project. We also are going to have a great set up for our actual demo space on Friday to show off our modules working in live time. 

Our web app also is becoming more robust, in both functionality and aesthetics. Our backend algorithms are working for spot coalescing and we are excited to show it all off together this week! This whole process has been incredibly fun and rewarding. We are proud of what we have accomplished.

This week I worked on final updates for the web-app, made plans with the rest of the team for final testing, and started planning for the poster submission. After discussing with Neville, I worked on redirecting the user’s screen when their requested spot gets taken on their way there. I also realized that the view spots needed some changes. Rather than just showing the available spots, Neville suggested that I figure out a way to show taken spots as well. I will finalize these updates by the end of day Sunday. After Kanvi’s presentation, I created a testing plans document to figure out the last action items for our last testing session. Lastly, I set up a meeting to talk about the poster tasks and finalize our testing doc. Next week, I will be working with the rest of the team to get ready for the public demo, report, and video.

This week I got to flash code on to all of the extra modules I assembled. This allowed us to finally test how our database receives data from multiple modules and how the information can be displayed on our web app. Our voltage regulators didn’t come in the mail in time so battery power will still be something we test before our final demo, but I’m excited for our final presentation. I’ve been working on the slides to show all of our testing methods and making sure we properly explain how we have evolved our techniques because of results from testing. With presentations this week, I’m super ready to learn about everyone else’s projects and then what comes from the time we have during finals week to make our demo/video. Everything seems to be coming together!

This week we focused on testing and getting results to share on the final presentation. We also aimed to finalize all important integration between subsystems. We are still working on getting the modules to be powered by batteries but plan to have it done by this week.

Next week, while Kanvi focuses on delivering the final presentation, Neville and I will start thinking about our miniature version for the public demo.

Overall, we are on schedule according to our gantt chart!

This week I started working on the second viewing mode for our webapp. This mode would allow users to get a visual idea of where and which curbside parking spots are available. I currently have a working version with mock data markers across the map. One thing that I plan on having done by Monday is making the markers dynamic so that they change size when the user zooms in or out of the map. I will also meet with Neville to connect this viewspots feature to the database which stores all the actual parking spaces. 

This week I also conducted usability testing for the webapp on 5 volunteers. The primary feedback was that they did not like typing in an entire address of their destination and would like a drop down that suggests addresses. Additionally, some testers wanted the map to update the starting point based on where the user drove. I might look into working on this in the next week if time permits. Tomorrow, Neville and I will work on latency testing to see the time difference between a sensor being occupied and it being reflected in the user’s request.

I will be helping Kanvi prepare for her presentation this week and am on schedule according to the gantt chart.

I built 2 more modules this week and loaded all of our code onto them. We will order more hardware this week and build enough to make two full testing spots. I also worked a bit on the front end “view spots” page and figured out that it’s not too hard to draw a polygon onto a google map once we have defined coordinates for our modules. This week we will drop pins on a map wherever we decide the final locations of our modules and then load those coordinates into our database to finalize the mapping to those locations as well as the view spots webpage.

This week I helped the rest of the team with field testing. The data and analysis is included in our weekly team report. At home, I continued to research how to enable multi-client views on our web-app. I found that the flask app takes a ‘threaded’ parameter which automatically handles multiple threads. Kanvi and I worked together on the view spots frontend design. I also thought about how to encode the locations of each sensor module in software. Next week, I will work with Neville to code up backend support for multiple requests.

We have focused on building more sensor modules to scale up and test our algorithms more thoroughly. In the upcoming weeks, we will make sure the modules have portable power and casing. We will enable our system to handle multiple requests. Lastly, we will continue field tests while we scale up. We are on schedule according to our gantt chart.

I have been focused on getting better after catching the flu earlier this week. For our demo, I have included the geolocation, geocoding, and directions api from google maps in our webapp. In the upcoming weeks until final, I will also include the distance matrix api to help rank the available spots to the user. We will also have to figure out a way to redirect the user in the case the given spot gets taken before the user reaches.

This week I worked on learning about the google maps api. Together with Kanvi, we now have a google cloud account with our project. Specifically, we will be using the geolocation api to help give our users directions from their current location to their inputted destination. This api also helps us incorporate traffic information and more proper distance metrics (instead of just using euclidean distance). I will keep looking into this over next week. I hope to have tracking the user location on our web app for the interim demo. Lastly, we have successfully built our spot module. So, I will help the team with field testing tomorrow.