Category: Nicole’s Status Reports

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 with Wen Hui and Alexis to hash out the interfaces and handshaking signals between the embedded controller, game controller, and the web app. I wrote out the requirements for these functions in detail in this file here.
  • I cut out ports into the battery holders so that the charging ports were accessible.

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  • I helped Alexis make laser-cut files for the bottom and side of the blocks, using measurements from our physical components.
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  • I finished integrating the Merriam-Webster API into the web app. I wrote several functions to help make an API call and then parse the request to extract the specific information I needed from the complicated API response. The function I wrote can be found in this file here.
  • Most of my time this week was spent on writing my portions of the design report, formatting it, and cleaning up the diagrams for it. 

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 mostly on schedule. I tried to set up the web app on the RPi this week, but ended up deciding to switch to packaging it all as a Docker and then just running that on the RPi instead so that I wouldn’t have to worry about environment dependencies. In terms of testing, I manually tested the web app game logic and hint retrieval latency/robustness through many games, but have yet to do it quantitatively according to our written out testing plan as I wanted to do this once the web app was successfully running on the RPi.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

• • Next week, I hope to be able to host the web app on the RPi 5 through Docker. Once hosted on the RPi, I hope to start our testing plans for the game logic accuracy and hint retrieval latency. I also plan to help with the mass-fabrication of the blocks.

• 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 finished implementing the web app front end pages and the entire backend for the web app. I created all the backend API functions that the game/embedded controller would just need to call in order to control the game flow display on the web app. I was able to simulate a game session by making POST requests to my web app backend.
    • link to Flask backend file: app.py
  • I registered for the Merriam-Webster API and obtained API keys.
  • I also helped Alexis to prototype UART communication between the RPi and the pico on a breadboard using the pogo pins.

• 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 mostly on schedule. Currently the web app is still using the free dictionary API, since I still have to figure out how to parse the Merriam-Webster dictionary API output to extract the definition and context for a word. I need to research a bit into the documentation for the Merriam-Webster dictionary API to see how I can do this.

• What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?
  • Next week, I hope to have the Merriam-Webster dictionary API fully implemented into the web app, and I hope to be able to host the web app on the RPi 5. Once hosted on the RPi, I hope to start our testing plans for the game logic accuracy and hint retrieval latency. However, a significant portion of my time next week will be spent on the design report, so these deliverables may extend into Spring Break.

 

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 made progress on the web app. I set up the Flask backend, began the registration process for Merriam-Webster Dictionary API, cleaned up the NYT Connections Dataset that we will be using, and implemented the custom word upload, hint retrieval, and definition display functions of the web app. For now I used the Free Dictionary API, but will change this to Merriam-Webster API once registration is complete. I also made a Github repo for the web app.
  • Video demo of web app progress so far: link
• Additionally, I made a detailed FSM for the display (web app frontend that interacts with backend and game logic) and a flow diagram for the game flow logic.

• I prototyped a paper cube to get a feel of what size we should make the blocks, and consequentially discovered that 3″x3″x3″ is ideal, and 4″x4″x4″ is the max size holdable in a single hand.

• I also worked on the Design Presentation slides.

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 mostly on-schedule. I still have to complete work on the frontend, mostly the portion of the web app that has to do with communicating with the embedded controller signals.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

• Next week, I hope to have the Merriam-Webster dictionary API up and running, implement the “existing puzzle retrieval” method for the web app, implement the remaining frontend pages, and hopefully try to host the web app on the RPi if possible.

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 made a Figma board for our web app that shows all the different pages and the different flows that the user may go through.

• I finalized the resources and APIs we will need for the web app after doing some research about different databases and web app backends. Ultimately after taking a look at the functions and load of the web app, I decided on Merriam Webster Dictionary API, Flask for backend, React for frontend, and CSV file or SQLite for database.
• I also started coding up the frontend for our web app in React and Typescript, creating the reusable components that we will be using for the different pages and finishing most of the pages’ front end.

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.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

• Next week, I hope to have a cleaned NYT Connections Dataset for our MVP in the form of a CSV file.
• I also want to make more progress on the web app frontend as well as setting up the Flask backend.
• I also hope to have the basic game logic planned out (pseudocode + flowchart).