This week I worked on designing the controller parts. I did CADs of the modules and the panels. These are preliminary designs and will likely need to be reiterated, but they are functional and also somewhat easily adaptable.
I also did some brainstorming on the electronic design part of things. We’ve been having many discussions about this so it’s taken a while, but we are going with 7 pins per module. 2 for ground and Vdd, 3 for a binary identifier of the module type, and (at most) 2 data pins. Modules that utilize peripherals like buttons or potentiometers will only need 1 data pin, but more advanced peripherals like the rotary encoder will require 2 data pins.
We are a bit behind schedule for the hardware components, since we’re still finalizing the exact circuit schematics and what devices we are buying. On the bright side, we have already started and have finished a prototype of designing the controller parts. That ended up getting prioritized this week because we felt getting that down was necessary for our design review presentation. Which, speaking of, I also worked on.
For next week, I hope to finalize electric components so we can order those and then start getting the controller prototype assembled. Also we can start working on the arduino code since we got that shipped.