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Team Status Report for 3/29/25

General update
  1. After completing the gantry assembly last week, we were able to complete the pulley system after receiving the belts this week. As some of our individual posts show, Tarek and I worked on testing this completed system to look at movement and gain an understanding of the motors with the Arduino code. The video can be found here: Gantry Testing Video. This was a super encouraging piece of progress and will be a great starting point for our demo next week.
Potential risks and risk management
  1. No new risks this week. Still exploring the gaze estimation, but the communication and data received from the camera are encouraging so far. There have also been more updates on the depth estimation side which should give us better ideas of the risk involved.
Overall design changes
  1. No new design changes this week.
Schedule

  1. Our schedule hasn’t really changed since last week. Our demo will be ready by Monday and we are excited to present this to the students and instructors in the class!

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Trey Wagner’s Status Report for 3/29/25

PERSONAL Accomplishments
  1. Setting up and Testing Gantry Pulley System (12 hr): Once the second timing belt arrived, I placed both belts onto the gantry to complete the assembly.                                                                                           As the image shows, the entire gantry is now assembled. I went through and continued to touch up the angles and tightness of the rails so that the middle bar rolled easily. This took some time to ensure that everything was ready for testing. Then, I worked with Tarek to help him set up his configuration to test his Arduino code with my gantry system. We saw great results in being able to control the gantry with great detail. The entire system moved smoothly and we were able to move it vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. An example video is found here: Gantry Movement Video
  2. Created braces for our gantry (2hr): I also spent some time designing some braces to 3D print that would maintain right angles in our design. This would ensure that our rails do not shift and pinch the movement. 
  3. Mandatory Lab Sessions (4hr): During our class sessions this week, we had an opportunity to continue to work together as a team. This helped to maintain our schedule and understand where our entire project stood. In particular, a meeting with Professor Kim helped to emphasize the importance of going above and beyond for our demo. We gained some motivation to not just do the bare minimum, but to aim for more functionality in our demo.
Progress

This week, I once again felt that I made some big progress by proving that the gantry design works and can facilitate movement. I feel that I am back on track and will now change my focus to prove the feasibility of chess piece movement on a full board.

Next Week Tasks & Goals
  1. Continue working on the design for our chessboard and pieces
  2. Test the movement of chess pieces on a few pieces
  3. Test movement with a full board
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Tarek’s Status Report for 3/29

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 great deal of progress. On Monday I wrote a basic Arduino sketch to test the limit switches we received and ensure they work as expected. This was successful. We’ll be using these for calibration.

I also spent some time designing the laser cut file to engrave our table. We’ll be purchasing a large piece of 1/8 in plywood, sawing it down to the right size, and engraving it using the IDeATe laser cutters.

I have begun by structuring all my code into libraries. I now have a stepper motor library. I tested this by writing an Arduino sketch to step both motors synchronously forward or backward by a number of steps entered by the user over serial input. This test was successful. In this test, we discovered that we will need one power supply for each motor driver.

Finally, once the second belt arrived Trey and I tested movement of the gantry using the stepper motor library. I wrote an Arduino sketch that let the user move the gantry by a positive or negative number of steps in the x and y direction sequentially. This test was also successful.

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

I am right on schedule.

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

I need to finalize the gantry library with better calibration for the number of steps per inch, so that we can have more accurate and precise gantry movement. I’ll also be helping Trey with some physical assembly.

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Liam’s Status Report 3/29/25

Personal Accomplishments

This week, I had a midterm and presentation, so I couldn’t afford to spend as much time as I wanted to on the capstone. There seemed to be a weird issue with the images. I think since this a point cloud image, I have to use the depth numpy array to properly create a normal looking image.

 

Progress

Booth and other classes have put me slightly behind. I will put in a lot of work later tonight and tomorrow to get a proper working MVP for the interim demo.

Future Deliverables

MVP gaze demo

UART for arduino

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Team Status Report for 3/22/25

General update
  1. This week, we finally got the gantry system assembled! This was an exciting step, and a picture will be attached below. The final step is attaching the timing belt to fully set up our pulley system, as well as wiring up the electrical systems that will control the gantry. Unfortunately, we have to wait for another timing belt to be delivered due to some size underestimates on our part. This should arrive on Monday, allowing us to finish up the entire system and begin testing early in the week. Trey and Tarek will work together to polish the final pieces of the design and then carry out testing on the basic movement mechanics of the system throughout the next week.                          
  2. Due to the nature of the gantry assembling, Tarek’s ability to test was limited. Therefore, he pivoted to finalize some of the details for our LED system, chess logic, and other peripherals. In particular, he was able to isolate and purchase some shift registers (74HC595) for the LED circuitry. The Arduino code is already written for the gantry movement, and it will be tested in more detail this week. There is also a new GitHub repository holding all of this code.
Potential risks and risk management
  1. No new risks this week. Still exploring the gaze estimation, but the communication and data received from the camera are encouraging so far. In the absolute worst-case scenario where we are left with little time to pivot, we would shift to an automated chess movement system where the user inputs their move and the piece is automatically moved.
Overall design changes
  1. The LED circuitry design for our project changed to use the 74HC595 shift register instead of the MAX7219 LED driver. Other than that, no other major design changes occurred this week.
Schedule

  1. We still expect to have a demo of the gantry system movement by our meeting with Professor Kim on Wednesday. The assembly of the gantry was an encouraging achievement that should enable various parts of our testing. As such, we did not have to make any major changes to our schedule. We plan to put in extra hours (when necessary) this week to stay on track for the upcoming demo deadline.

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Trey Wagner’s Status Report for 3/22/25

PERSONAL Accomplishments
  1. Assembling Gantry System (15+ hr): The entirety of my time this week was set aside to assemble the gantry system.                                                                                    As the image shows, the bones of the gantry system are all assembled. This involved a lot of measurements, layout, precise angles, and assembly with screws, nuts, and sockets. The middle bar can move freely left and right due to the wheels on the 3D-printed assembly holding it up. The trolley system in the middle was also 3D printed and carries the electromagnet for our design. It can move freely up and down, allowing motion in both the X- and Y-directions. Lots of small adjustments had to be made throughout the assembly to ensure the bars were not pinched or angled in a way that limited movement. Due to some issues with the timing belt, we have to wait for another to be delivered before finishing the entire pulley system. Once that arrives (hopefully Monday), we can finish the entire system and begin testing with Tarek’s Arduino code. This was an exciting piece of progress! It was very fulfilling to see the design begin to come to life, and I am excited to watch it perform during our initial testing.

2. Mandatory Lab Sessions (4hr): During our class sessions this week, we had an opportunity to explore the ethical implications of our capstone project. This was a very helpful exercise to map out our stakeholders, determine risks, and manage the tensions that could form over time. I believe this was extremely valuable insight, especially during the red teaming exercise which identified some of the key user values that we may be ignoring.

Progress

This week, I felt that I made significant progress and met a major goal for our design. However, we just missed the goal of having a demo of the basic movements for the gantry system. As such, I still feel slightly behind. I plan to work more on Sunday and Monday to polish the design and test the movement with Tarek. This will put us back on track and allow us to present a basic demo to Professor Kim in our Wednesday meeting.

Next Week Tasks & Goals
  1. Test basic movements (from point A to point B) for consistent accuracy
  2. Determine circuit/logic for roller switches that calibrate the gantry system
  3. Continue working on the design for our chessboard and pieces
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Tarek’s Status Report for 3/22

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).

I started off the week by working with the IDeATe staff to get our parts printed, and to be able to print parts quickly in the future. I 3D printed the pieces for the gantry and the camera stand and delivered them to the group. Given that I still couldn’t test my Arduino motor code until the gantry was fully set up, I started working on later tasks, such as the chess logic, overall main routine, LEDs, and additional peripherals.

I chose and ordered some shift registers, 74HC595s in particular, to control the chessboard LEDs. These are a better choice than the previously chosen MAX7219 LED driver because they can more accurately and responsively light a single LED at a time, as the MAX7219 uses row and column scanning, while the shift registers can simply set a row and column high. For a system where users are constantly looking around and high responsiveness is necessary, this is a better choice and worth the extra wiring. I also designed the circuit for this.

I also created a GitHub repository (I wasn’t able to do this while in Europe because 2FA wouldn’t let me log in), and uploaded commits of my previous Arduino code versions. I added a main routine that I will be using to guide the design of the other embedded controller libraries (motor control, magnet control, LED control, keypad, and chess logic) .

Finally, I assisted Trey with assembling the gantry, and continued working on the chess logic file.

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

Still bottlenecked by not being able to test the Arduino motor code, so I am behind on the gantry motion control. However, I spent time getting ahead on parts I was not meant to start later, so I am not too far behind overall.

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

Now that the gantry is finally assembled, I will be testing the Arduino motor code over the next two days, and then refining the motion of the gantry throughout the board (e.g. moving pieces between other pieces and recalibrating gantry after every move).

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Liam’s Status Report 3/22/25

Personal Accomplishments

I used the zero MQ python library to have the gaze estimation script and the camera script communicate using a queue. Later tonight I’m going to find a screw for the 3d printed stand that we now have. Doing some research on available gaze models I came across some research on github showing how 9 calibration samples could improve accuracy by 5%. This might be something we explore in the future.

Progress

I think I’ve brought myself back to schedule by having the two parts of our software communicate with each other.

Future Deliverables

Cleaning up code and gaze model

Maybe add some training data?

 

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Liam’s Status Report 3/15/25

Personal Accomplishments

I was able to save the depth and color images as a np array and as an image locally to my computer. Since the stereo camera software only runs on python 3.7 this creates issues with using any type of models since python 3.7 has been EOL for a while. I might explore using it through a HTTP port and having two python programs running at the same time.

 

Progress

I am slightly behind schedule. Being bottlenecked by 3d stand not being printed by techspark.

Future Deliverables

Get the stereo camera working properly with two python programs.

 

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Team Status Report for 3/15/25

General update

Trey and Tarek’s work this week was focused on physical design and fabrication of parts. Tarek designed and 3D printed a stand for the stereo camera so Liam can continue testing on the device. Trey designed some parts for the gantry to be able to hold the electromagnet, which Tarek sent to 3D print at the IDeATe printers. Progress this week relied on these parts, but IDeATe has not yet approved and printed these parts, which has bottlenecked work for the team this week. Nonetheless, Tarek worked on chess logic code, Trey worked on cutting the gantry rails and beginning assembly of the gantry, and Liam worked on getting both depth and images from the camera. He is currently working on having two python programs to interface together due to version incompatibilities.

We also individually spent time working on our ethics assignments, which was time consuming.

We are still aiming to have a demo-able gantry by next weekend. At the very least, we will be able to move the gantry to a given coordinate and control the electromagnet.

Potential risks and risk management

No new risks this week. 3D printing was bottlenecked but we are working on resolving that with IDeATe or using TechSpark to get the parts printed and resume work within the next 48 hours.

Overall design changes

No design changes this week.