During the start of this week, I mainly focused on our team’s proposal presentation, finishing up slides and practicing its delivery. Specifically, I worked on setting up an appropriate theme, format, and visuals for the slides, defining the problem, technical challenges, and testing plan, and adding any missing content to the remaining parts. I then looked over all the information that we had researched, our updated design plan, and any quantifiable values to be as prepared for possible questions that could come up during the presentation. I ran through the presentation multiple times (alone and later in front of others for feedback), making sure that I was covering all the important details while still maintaining the time limit.
After presenting on Monday, I worked on finding ways to incorporate the feedback/comments/questions that came up during the presentation and researched more in terms of our materials to better define our device design, specifically focusing on the mechanical/hardware implementation, as that is the area we are most unconfident about at the moment. In terms of the visual LED cue that we had originally planned, I thought it might be easier to go with neopixels, as only one would be needed (as opposed to a separate LED for red and green) to avoid confusion for the user and allow for future indicator capabilities if time permits. Based on feedback given during the presentation, I also looked into proximity/ultrasonic sensors that could be used in order to indicate that the bin is full. Lastly, I tried improving our trapdoor implementation, looking up videos of existing designs and tools that could be used (servos vs actuators vs more powerful motors).
Here is our current version of the Trap door design
My progress is going according to schedule, and I hope that in the next few days, I can narrow down all of the specific materials needed for ordering and have enough design details for our upcoming report deadline.
Document of research sources of materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12br7eD0iqjRmdWXDqOWgGqm1XdGtU76QQc_jtMEdrBI/edit?usp=sharing