This week I mostly worked on designing our finite state machines for the rotor settings and for the keyboard (see below). I also redesigned the top layer view (see below) of our schematic (with potentiometers) after getting feedback from course instructors who advised that we should include a turning rotor mechanism (we decided in the form of potentiometers) to help mimic the look and feel of the original Enigma machine. I also redesigned our system block diagram (see below) by removing the Arduino after receiving feedback from our proposal. Now our design only consists of the FPGA, custom PCB, and keyboard peripheral. I also researched the Altera DE0 Nano board as a replacement for the Altera DE10 due to the increased number of pins we’ll need since removing the Arduino from the system. Lastly, I worked on the design presentation slides.
Due to our redesign, I did not research UART like I had mentioned last week because UART is no longer needed since removing the Arduino. Next week I’ll work on finalizing the signals and modules for RTL encoding. Next week I will also likely spend quite a bit of time on the Design Report — this is because Nancy and Tanisha are working hard to finish the custom PCB to send to the fab before spring break.
