This week, the team’s main focus is on the construction and testing of the PCB board for the hall effect sensor matrix. In addition, we completed the software APIs and logics to deal with the event when a new piece placement is detected by the hall effect sensor, which marks completion of the major software features (gantry movement of opponent’s placement and board update given a new physical piece placed) .
Due to the spacing of the PCB design, we have to solder on multiplexer without header pins to ensure the minimal distance required between the surface and the electromagnet for the movement system to function. Such restriction lead to escalating difficulty in soldering on components without shorting, slowing down the testing process and destroying multiple components during the process. To solve this problem, we decided to decrease the size of the board for the final presentation, while Sizhe made improvements on the original PCB design to be used for the final demo product.
Next week, we will focus on constructing and assembling the final parts once we receive the new improved PCB boards.