General update
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- 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
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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.