Erin’s Status Report for March 22nd, 2025

This week, I wrote the infrastructure to get the Arduino to communicate with the servo for our sorting mechanism. I drove the servo with 5V from the Arduino. However, I noticed that the reason that worked was because the no-load current of the Arduino was 190mA. With a load (which we will definitely have when we integrate the servo into the mechanical build of our product), our stall current goes up to 2000mA, which is way more than the Arduino can safely handle. Because of this, I will need to power the servo with an external power supply, which I intend to experiment with in the following week. I also wrote the infrastructure to drive the motor through the motor driver and Arduino however, this also needs an external power supply due to the excessive current draw. In addition to this, I plan on starting the UI powered by the Jetson and establishing communication with the motor.