This week has been one of preparation and prototyping. Our Adafruit and first Amazon orders arrived, and we were able to run a test circuit where we checked that both the stepper motor and air pump could be powered and controlled. Electronics-wise, everything is fine; we’ll be waiting for the rest of our orders to come in before we can build our complete prototype. The 3D printed electronics mount had too little clearance in all of its holes, so we’ll be re-printing it with an extra 0.25mm of radius this week.
Software-wise, NAPS2 is proving to be the correct library choice. Sophia was able to implement OS-specific functionality, and the preliminary work can run on Windows and Linux. There is also a consistent file system for saving completed scans. The next steps will be testing computer-printer interactions.
On the signals end, Yon has continued to make progress on the scan/object mapping and has found new research that we may be able to draw inspiration from.
As of right now, we’re currently all on schedule. The only foreseeable issue in the project right now is the possibility of an object with an abrasive surface scratching the bed of the scanner while rotating. We’ll tackle this during the characterization of our prototype, and the most likely solution will be motorizing the vertical movement of the electronics mount so that we pick up the object before rotating it and let it down before we scan it.