Emma Hoffman’s Status Report 2/15

This week, I worked on finding the materials needed to build the boat. I found a tutorial video of someone using waterproof sealant, window mesh, and foam board to make the boat. He put the foam board together with the sealant to form the boat shape. Then, he covered the boat with more sealant and window mesh to make it even more water tight. I’m planning on using an exacto knife to cut out pieces of the foam board and put it together using the sealant. 

We wanted to make a custom boat because we weren’t sure how the Z-direction movement will work yet and how big this system will be. We also wanted to have room for our electronics on the boat. I found appropriate items to order to build the boat and put them in a chart we made that tracks our spending and ordering.

I also worked on the slides for the design review. I did the recap of the use case requirements and project slide, and the testing and validation slides. For testing, I realized that we can adjust the speed of the motors if needed because the motor driver can change the rotational speed of the propeller blades. 

I am competing for CMU at the swim team’s conference championship meet this week. We left on Tuesday (2/11) and we do not return to campus until Sunday (2/16). This means I will not be able to test the Raspberry Pi and camera until next week. Despite this, I am still on schedule according to the Gantt chart since I was not supposed to be testing until next week. On Sunday, I am planning to make a circuit diagram of the electronic system so far. The diagram will show the connection between the motor, the motor driver, and the Raspberry Pi. It also will show the connection between the camera and the Raspberry Pi and how we are powering the Raspberry Pi. I am not seeing any noticeable risks at the moment with my section of the project.