This week, we started by meeting with Tamal and Alex about our new project idea. We decided to narrow down our scope to just monitor machines with dashboards (i.e. stationary bikes, treadmills, and stair climbers). From there, we began to work on our design. On Monday, the three of us looked at certain parts that we would use for our project. For example, Ian F. looked into which IR sensor he thought would be best, Ian B. looked into Django and the RPi that would be used, and Nat looked into the microcontrollers for the project. Later in the week, Nat and Ian F. worked on the block diagram for the Design Presentation, and Ian B. worked on a mock up for the web app.
The main principle of that we used to develop the design solution for this project is KISS, or Keep It Simple, Stupid. The idea with this principle is that we did not want to overcomplicate our design by adding unnecessary components. One example of this principle in action was when we thought we would need a battery to power our project, but Tamal mentioned using the charging ports already present on the machines.
One significant risk that could jeopardize the success of the project is not being able to detect whether or not a machine is in use with the IR sensor. This risk is being managed through testing the sensor at various ranges, and our worst-case scenario contingency plan would be to use an ultrasound sensor which would have more range.
No changes were made to the existing design of the system because this is the first iteration of the design.