This week our team spent most of our time on the Design review report. Since we have been building concrete ideas and implementation methods for the project, we looked for ways to further finalize our decisions. We each took part in writing sections for the Design review report. In my case, I wrote the introduction, bill of materials with schedule, and implementation/testing methods for the sensor board. In particular, our team started to finalize what the glove will look like with the sensors and the Arduino Micro. I came up with four options for the glove: black knit glove, white knit glove, safety work glove, and tactical work glove. After considering each pro and cons, we decided to order safety work gloves. We believe that the rubber coating material on the fingertip will be the most ideal surface to attach the force sensors. Also, we thought that the glove will be comfortable for users and moderately cheap to buy in bulk. One of the problems that we may face with the glove is attaching the Arduino Micro to the back of the user’s hand. For this problem, we are thinking of 3D printing a plastic case and using epoxy or hot glue to stick on the glove.
Other than the Design review report, I worked on acquiring gyroscope data using the breakout board. Fortunately, we got hold of an Arduino Micro this week and successfully obtained data using it. There was a slight challenge with the code that I tested last week on an Arduino Uno and so this week I changed the code to take in a temperature reading between the accelerometer and the gyroscope data. This process allowed me to obtain the expected data, but I hope to learn more about the dependency on this parameter next week. Currently, the accelerometer and gyroscope data are not post-processed and the data are quite difficult to understand. In the upcoming week, I hope to make an algorithm to output data that is useful for other processing boards to understand. Specifically, the current data is very sensitive to any instantaneous changes and I hope to come up with a method that will output a stable change of state (e.g. movement to left, right, up, and down).
The only part of the schedule that I am behind is acquiring data using the force sensors. Despite placing the order two weeks ago, I still haven’t received the force sensors and so I couldn’t start any tests on them. We hope the sensors arrive next week and reach out to either our TA or Digikey to inquire about their whereabouts. If they arrive next week, I will also start acquiring data using the force sensors and hopefully finalize which sensor to use from our three options.