Not much has been done on the hardware this week except for some testing and receiving the new parts: new batteries and stepper motors. I have tried the dispensing and the rotation again using the old motor, but the motor accuracy got better again, and the reverse direction doesn’t seem to be losing as many steps as last week. I believe after not testing it for a couple of days, the temporal wearout from overheating or usage has gotten better. I’m most likely going to save the new motor in this case for next week’s Techspark demo and Friday’s real demo. The card dealing also seems to be sufficiently consistent. Also, I have changed the internal gear used for chassis rotation into a slightly taller one so there is more contact between the internal and the outer gear for better torque delivery.
I am on schedule, and next week will be dedicated to full system testing and taking part in demo days. I will also try to reassemble the parts before the testing to make the design look neat. We will keep the masking tape outside instead of just gluing them so that we can easily take them apart in case something happens. Also, I believe it will look nicer to just use tape instead.