As you’ve designed, implemented and debugged your project, what new tools or new knowledge did you find it necessary to learn to be able to accomplish these tasks? What learning strategies did you use to acquire this new knowledge?
- I needed to relearn how to properly solder things (out of practice). My strategy was to understand that it is possible to improve and that failures can be fixed, and ask for feedback from someone with more experience.
- Similarly, I needed to relearn how to program in C++. My strategy was to look at existing Arduino sample code, and run example code to determine if something is a software issue or Beetle issue.
- I learned more about how PCB design works (I never helped design a PCB before this semester), including that trace widths are relevant to resistance. My strategy: when reporting results, source the method and calculations so that the logic is apparent to others.
What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or photos that demonstrate your progress. Prove to the reader that you put sufficient effort into the project over the course of the week (12+ hours).
These are details of the panels for the new PCB design.
- Tasks from last time are all done except for BLE (Lucy is handling that now), with the caveat that we ended up not needing to order more diodes.
- There was an update to the flexPCB order: we ended up ordering both rigid and flex boards, both with the peak detector.
- I soldered mic gain resistors with different values to different PCBs and tested the mic responses on an oscilloscope (for values of 0, 10K, 33K ohms). This confirmed that 10K is sufficient for gain, which means the final design can use SMD 10K resistors. This should make final assembly easier.
- I verified that PCB trace widths for the new design shouldn’t create problematic resistances.
- I soldered header pins to the battery breakout board and boost converter so that the battery has a stable connection to the PCB.
Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?
- Progress is generally behind, and I hope to get more work done in the next week so that the final system is functional.
What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?
I hope to complete: final mic calibration code, which commands the LEDs to display different colors; button code, so that the Beetle responds when a button is pressed; putting all the code together into 1 file; and getting the Beetle to successfully run off of 1 battery (the connection is stable, but the Beetle doesn’t light up).