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).
This week I worked on the hardware, prototyping, and communications. I manually soldered the pogo pins onto cut pref boards as the pins were too small to fit on a standard bread board. This was done for just two blocks I then wanted to test the continuity of the pins and wires connected to it so at first I did a simple test with a multi-meter and later on I tested through the UART TX and RX line. I also created a cardboard 3″x3″x3″ with cutouts for the pogo pins, the standard LCD that we had available, and on/off switch for battery. From this cardboard prototype we were able to determine that all the parts we initially planned for would all fit. I also put together the power system and tested it by plugging the micro-usb b into the port of the Rpi to which it was able to turn on. With the initial layout going according to our original plan we felt that we could now order all the remaining parts to build all of the 8 blocks that we need for MVP. We bought acrylic boxes that are 3″x3″x3″ and we got a rough weight of what the blocks feel like and we are on track to meet our dimension and weight design requirements. On the software side, I was able to set up UART between Rpi and the Rpi pico via the pogo pin connection. I did a simple test of sending and receiving a message that is printed onto the console while Wen Hui added more logic to it for a proper protocol. Though I haven’t measured the exact latency we found that it was fairly fast and which I meets our design requirements as well. I am currently working on using the new LCD that we received from wave share on Friday and interfacing with the LCD library.
Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be
taken to catch up to the project schedule?
My progress is on schedule. This week was a good determination of whether we needed the PCBs for the blocks and we settled on a plan that I would create a PCB that is on “hold”. After manually building 2 blocks and timing it, we will determine if we need to place the order for these or if we have enough time to just manufacture each ourselves. We will also look into PCB milling at Techspark. But as of right now we are on track!
What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?
The deliverables that I have for next week is to get a full E2E of 2 blocks communicating with the Rpi via the multiplexer and laser cut all of the blocks for the ports and slots that we need as well as the battery holders. It would be ideal to get 1 full row working as well. I will work on interfacing with the LCDs on each block and the design for the PCB. I will also produce a CAD for the grid and assemble it when we can ensure everything will fit based on the row we produce.