This week I collected all of our supplies that had come in and reserved a bin to hold them. We recieved our 2 RPis, RFID reader for testing, and accessory cables for the RPis (USB A and power supply). We’re still waiting on HDMI cables for the RPis, which should come in soon. Once we have them, I’ll start setting them up and connect them to the Arduino that controls the circuit. I also constructed our inductor coil. I found a suitable holder in TechSpark, calculated winds based on its dimensions and what capacitors I have available, and wound it. Next week or this weekend I’ll bring the circuit I constructed in and connect the two.
*I could not get the photos to upload directly so here is a link to a Google Drive 🙂
This week’s progress was very promising to me. From this point on is where the real work is – testing the hardware and debugging as necessary – but I think things look good right now. Possible events that could put me behind schedule include any issues that require a lot of debugging and late arrival of components; I’m still waiting on the power supply for our circuit, and HDMI cables for the RPis. I do have risk mitigation plans in place: for the power supply, I can use an ADALM, and for the HDMI cables, I can borrow some that are already in the 1300 wing laboratories. I will put them back when I’m done with them 🙂
Next week, I’ll connect the coils to my circuit and begin testing the circuit. I’ll start with the default 220 lab settings on the Arduino and an in-lab waveform generator for our power supply, and once everything looks good, start swapping things out for what our own project needs one by one. This slow transition will help me quickly identify the source of any errors. Once everything is working, I’ll connect the hardware to the RPi and start working on bringing hardware and software together to form our finished product!