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Mohammed’s Status Report for February 15th, 2025

Aside from working on next week’s presentation, I primarily experimented with different pre-trained models that can be utilized for the project. The two prominent ones were a YOLOv5 model and a vision transformer, though both were trained on similar datasets. Both models seemed to struggle a bit with trash detection as well as false positives for recyclable material. Fine-tuning the models will likely help with that. The fine-tuning data will likely consist of the dataset that the models were trained. We will also use the Trash Annotations in Context (TACO) dataset which consists of a large image collection of labeled trash and recyclable objects, where we will have to condense the latter to the categories we are using for the project (trash, paper, metal, glass, and plastic).

Attached is an image of the YOLOv5 model’s inference result on an image I captured. The aforementioned problems can be seen in the image. Regardless, we will be sticking with a YOLO model as it is easier to fine-tune and can better visualize its predictions.

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Team Status Report for 08/02/2025

Potential Risks and Risk Management

The most significant risks that we anticipate for this project are:

Servo Load Rating
In our project proposal, we indicated that we expect our system to be able to accurately classify 25’’ diameter, 10-pound objects. Given these conditions, we are uncertain if simple servos will be able to handle this load. In addition to this, timing synchronization will be pivotal for our product to work as expected. To address these risks, we have identified possible alternatives.

  • Use a servo rated for higher loads (7kg, 25kg, etc.)
  • Implement an additional stabilizer for servo actuation in the conveyor belt design

Mechanical Failure
The conveyor belt breaks or stalls, thus increasing the latency of the system. To address these issues, we have outlined strict prototyping requirements for our initial stages.

  • Stress Test System Design 
    • Place 6 objects of a maximum of 10 pounds onto the belt
    • Allow the conveyor system to run at 0.68mph (based on proposal) and check functionality

Overall Design Changes
No significant changes were made to our design. This may change as we solidify our system architecture. We have upcoming goals of completing the CAD Model of the conveyor belt by 09/02/2025, and the entire system design architecture by 11/02/2025. 


Schedule
Currently, there are no major updates to our schedule, however, we have updated it to indicate our progress on ongoing tasks.

Schedule – Gantt Chart

 Progress Update
With a spare NVIDIA Jetson Nano, our team was able to boot up the Jetson successfully. We ran into some issues initially with regard to the system getting overloaded every time we plugged in a USB, however, we were able to quickly get past this by using a 5V 3+A power brick. We were also able to connect the Jetson to WiFi using this Spark Fun guide. For our object detection mechanism, we decided that we would be using a YOLO model, and so we decided to test whether the Jetson could successfully launch an existing program.

Our Jetson Nano successfully running a YOLO Model 

In addition to this, we also worked on our parts list, cross-listing items that we needed with the CMU Inventory, and also considering tradeoffs with components that are currently in the inventory vs. other unlisted suppliers. 

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Mohammed’s Status Report for February 8th, 2025

Personal Accomplishments

I worked alongside Erin on a Jetson Nano we had to get familiar with the device setup. Obstacles we faced along the way as mentioned in the team report is our first power brick not supplying enough power, leading to impromptu shutdowns, in addition to the device not supporting Wi-Fi natively. Our accomplishment in that regard was fixing the power issues and successfully setting up a wireless connection. Subsequently, I got a YOLO v3 model working on OpenCV by setting up Anaconda and installing any required dependencies.

Lastly, I worked alongside the rest of the team on refining the project’s design and picking the necessary components that we will be ordering, both from 18500’s inventory and internet listings.

Schedule

We are not behind by much now. The design presentation is coming up in under two weeks, which prompted us to begin finalizing our design choices. We expect to wrap up our project design and the corresponding presentation on time. As we are on track for the design presentation, we also expect to order our parts for prototyping soon.

For my part, I will begin compiling databases for our CV model in addition to finalizing the YOLO version that will go utilized.

Next Week’s Deliverables

I hope to complete the design presentation alongside the group. I also aim to have a compiled dataset on recyclable material for our model to learn off. Finally, I would like to help the team finalize the required parts for us to place the order.