Author: mbalajee

This week, I focused on ensuring our PCBs were fabricated correctly and properly connected to the 9th MUX.  I also helped ensure we can have our PCB neatly placed and positioned within our encasing, to provide minimal clutter and easily accessible. I was also able to run a number of tests on our software systems, to ensure that the move and board legality checker has minimal latency (<25ms) and the sub-system was able to catch all illegal board states and moves. I was able to test the board components for accessibility (braille, piece identification, ease of understanding the board), and decided to modify our braille tiles to be larger to ensure clear comprehension by our blind users. I was also able to provide that our button and speaker circuit work accurately and ensure that they can be powered by our RPi/Arduino, without affecting the performance of our system. I was also able to run some power tests on our button and speaker circuit while keeping in mind the voltage requirements of our PCBs. Finally, I was able to determine the latency for communication between the Arduino and RPi (<80ms), and also the vocalization system(~<500ms). I was able to ensure that our sub-systems were within their individual latency requirements for MVP and plan to reduce latency post-MVP.

We are slightly behind schedule because of a delay in the arrival of our magnets and PCBs, however, we plan to finish the integration by this weekend and start our system tests and integration tests next week, before our final demo.

By next week, we hope to have our project completely done and ready to be used!

This week, I was able to help Edison solder the PCB. I focused the majority of my time on the piece detection logic, by choosing accurate magnets and magnetic strengths for each piece. After that, I was able to write Arduino code to generate a move based on the number of sensors we had (one fabricated row). This way I was able to generate a move and send the move over to be validated and sent to lichess.org.

We are currently slightly behind schedule because of delays in our orders for PCBs and magnets. However, we have been able to make significant progress with fabricating our PCBs and have at least a semi-functional board by this weekend.

This next week, I hope to be able to integrate the MUX logic with our existing software logic and connect the PCBs. I also hope to be able to attach the speaker to the board and help complete the board to make it a functional product. This week, I also hope to be able to perform as much testing as possible to ensure the integrity of the product.

This week, I ensured communication between different systems worked as expected. This includes connecting our Arduino, and RPi to communicate with each other and information flowed accurately between the two systems. I was also able to manufacture our pieces and print all pour components required for blind users to play physical chess.

Currently, we are slightly behind on our schedule as our PCBs had to be re-fabricated and re-ordered. This delay could potentially affect us, however, I have been able to simulate the testing script to ensure that our current system works correctly, so that we would only have to establish communication between the physical board and the online platform.

Regarding testing and validation, I have been able to add error logs in my software scripts to ensure I can catch any error by monitoring the errors.log file. Since we do not have our hardware components yet, we decided to simulate inputs like it would be made by a user, to play a game of chess with an online player. We also have been measuring our latency goals as we develop, to ensure we stay within our target. We have been user-testing our pieces to ensure our blind users can recognize pieces correctly, and identify the coordinates with the braille notation.

For next week, I plan on finishing the fabrication of our PCB and having our PCB powered, and connected to our software system. I also plan to ensure we have a fully functional button system for starting a game and performing other functions required for the game of chess, and also make sure we have our speaker embedded in our board.

This week, I was able to finish up our software module, upload our code onto the RPi and enable communication between arduino and RPi. Apart from this, I was also able to write arduino code, to help facilitate some sensor measurements and voltage checks for our hardware, before we pass data over to out software component. Apart from this, I was also able to write testing scripts for some of our scripts to help ensure optimal performance.

At the current rate, we are slightly behind schedule, however, we have our physical product in manufacturing, which would put us back on track to complete our project well ahead of time.

By next week, we hope to have a functional gameplay on the software side, and a proof of concept with at least 3-4 rows working, with the ability to detect different pieces and types of actions.

This week, I was able to finish modeling all our pieces and print a couple out to test that their behavior with the magnet and sensor is as expected. I was also able to determine the magnetic strength required for each unique piece and have our order ready to be placed on Tuesday. I was also able to work on the Software side with Edison to help ensure our code functions as expected. I was able to make a script to validate a user’s move made on the board and pass the information along through various other checks and finally over to lichess.org. I was also able to work on our arduino code, to help read the output of the Hall Effect Sensor.

Currently, we have been able to stick to our schedule, by making progress over spring break, and are a little behind on manufacturing the board.

I hope to complete the manufacturing of the board by next week, and also upload our code into the RPi. We hope to have full connectivity barring our hardware. This will enable full gameplay from a software application.