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Matt’s Status Report for 3/15

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project?

This week, I completed the code for determining the box’s speed and depth (y-coordinate). This involved continuously tracking the QR codes using the webcam and estimating continuous center position movement over time. I tested it using our Brio3000 webcam on actual boxes moving on the treadmill, and it seems to work accurately.

Is your progress on schedule?

We are running on schedule, although we’re less ahead than we were a few weeks ago. With the hardware almost ready to be integrated with the CV / kinematics / control code, our overall progress should pick up again soon.

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

I plan on completing the Arduino code and the Python/Arduino interfacing code so that we can immediately run our software as soon as the arm is ready. Hopefully we can also start testing our QR / movement code with the arm.

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Team’s Status Report 3/15

This week, we completed our qr tracking algorithm for realtime tracking down the conveyor belt. This program also includes code for determining the box’s speed and depth (y-coordinate). We loosely tested it using our Brio3000 webcam on actual boxes moving on the treadmill, and it seems to work accurately. We also wired the robot arm and got it to pick up packages. We tested the voltage feedback for each component and dialed the angles in the Arduino code to have each actuator have an accurate 0 – 180 measurement. We were able to get t1 and t2 to run specific angle moves with feedback.

Our current main concern is the time it will take the robot arm to grab the package from the treadmill. We are worried that various latencies will make it difficult to move the arm into position in time to grab the box. We plan to extensively test the vision program, PC-Arduino connection, and tweak the motors / Arduino responsiveness to get accurate timings measured. We have already taken steps to address this by having the camera positioned significantly ahead of the arm, and having the arm hover in a neutral position above the conveyor belt. If the timing takes too long, we plan to move the camera closer to the belt and further from the arm to give us more time, and potentially ramp our motors to be faster.

Our next steps are to finish wiring the robot arm’s motors and getting it to run multiple sequential moves (accurately and quickly). We also plan on completing the Python/Arduino interfacing code so that we can immediately run our vision software as soon as the arm is ready.

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Marcus’s Status Report 3/15

This week I soldered most of the arm wiring, and connected it up to an Arduino controller. I testes the voltage feedback for each component. The 360 angle sensors were more like 180 so I had to account for dead space in the actuator movement. It took many iterations of Arduino to get the angles dialed to have each actuator have an accurate 0 – 180 measurement. I then wired the motors for t1 an t2. I had to get the direction of rotation and limit switches right  through flipping wires. I was able to get t1 and t2 to run specific angle moves with feedback. I then wired the vacuum and got the robot to do a box pick up move.

Next steps are: getting the robot to run multiple sequential moves instead of just 1, and wiring the rest of the robot motors and servo, t0 and the t4 servo. I working to figure out how to post videos on this website.

 

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Raunak’s Status Report for 3/15

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or
photos that demonstrate your progress. 

This week I helped with integrating the camera system with the treadmill and verifying that QR codes could be scanned. We tested the camera at varying heights and positions on the treadmill and marked the region that we found was the best for positioning (far enough from the head of the treadmill to place boxes and high enough to see the entire width of the treadmill).

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Since we have completed a lot of the software already, I decided to work on some extra “nice-to-have” features for our software. Namely, I wanted to add an ML component to the project, so I decided to start working on a system that detects objects on a treadmill. My idea was that instead of QR codes labelling the category of each box, which can be tedious in real life, we could have the algorithm determine the object using CV. This is a reach goal for our project because getting an accurate classifer for a variety of objects and integrating it into the system is a difficult task. Nevertheless, this week I started coding up the classification algorithm using PyTorch and Torchvision.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be
taken to catch up to the project schedule?

Our progress is on schedule! We have ordered and received pretty much all of the parts we need and are starting to integrate various components of the project together.

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

Next week, we want to start testing our software on the robotic arm and Arduino microcontroller. This will be the first major integration test, verifying that the different components of our project work correctly together. That will be the main focus for next week. If I get time outside of that, I want to continue working on my CV piece to see if I can get my algorithm to identify various objects.

 

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Matt’s Status Report for 3/8

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project?

This week, I completed the QR scanning code and successfully tested it using our Brio3000 webcam. In addition to reading the QR code value, I completed the code for getting the QR’s position and size. I also tested this on real-world QR codes using the Brio3000. This code should allow us to estimate a box’s depth and speed in our robotic arm system.

Is your progress on schedule?

We are definitely running on schedule. The software is ready to be tested with the arm/system.

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

I plan on testing the QR code on the entire treadmill system. This will involve mounting the webcam above the treadmill and running the QR code scanning, position, and size tests on real boxes that are moving on the treadmill.

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Teams Status Report for 3/8/25

This week we worked on the design report and planning out the connection of our algorithms. We discussed using pixel differences in the qr to judge the height of the box on the treadmill. We are working to test the camera and the rest of our electrical components. When we get the robot arm to work were are going to feed it live position control calculate from camera data.

Here is about halfway finished soldering and wiring of the robot arm motor control box. 

 

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Marcus’s status report for 3/8

These weeks I worked on the report and wiring the robot. I was able to wire about half of the robot and do tests on one of motors and angle sensors. I was able to create a preliminary Arduino angle feedback control system for 1 motor. One setback is that the “360” angle sensors were actually 250, and I think the overall cause was esp32 only supporting 3.3v and not 5. This problem might require a switch to arduino. Otherwise everything going smooth, next week I am going to finish wiring the robot arm and do full movement tests. 

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Raunak’s Status Report for 3/8/25

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files orphotos that demonstrate your progress. 

This week, we got the computer vision system set up started. Our camera got delivered and we verified that it was able to scan and track QR codes, which is essential to our system working. We also finished testing the kinematic equation solver and verified that it is working completely (via matplotlib simulation). In addition to all of this, I spent a lot of time on the design report, making sure we included a significant amount of detail for each part. I focused on the Abstract, Introduction, Use-Case Requirements and Architecture portions of the report.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? 

I think our progress is actually ahead of schedule. We are closing in on getting the MVP to work soon after the break!

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

For after the break, we want to start simulating the software on the robotic arm and the camera. For instance, we want to get the kinematic equations to work with the robotic arm and see if it is able to pick up objects. We also want to get the camera working with the CV software and be able to take the scanned QR codes, convert them to numbers and send this information back to the robotic arm so that it knows where to place the box.

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Marcus’s Status Report for 2/22

This week I moved a treadmill to a stable location and ran speed tests. Additionally I took it apart to see the motor and pulley setup. Planning on ordering electronic components in the next week. I need to ask for where to get bulk 18-22 awg wire. I also made a 3d kinematics visualizer and move solver

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Team Status Report for 2/22/25

This week we worked on finalizing out design, and camera setup. We have received the treadmill and camera, and are going to run tests accordingly. We ran the treadmill to see what speed settings it had and .5 mph is the lowest we can go without modifying the treadmill. This looks pretty fast so we are going to do some math on required speed for the move.

Next week we are going to test the camera with Qr’s and order hardware components.