Category: Anna’s Status Reports

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 dedicated a significant amount of time to writing our Design Review Report, as this was our primary objective. Additionally, I began researching the installation process for the OS Imager on our RPi. I spent my time watching tutorials, and working to enable SSH to streamline our development process since none of us have had prior experience with it. I installed the OS on the micro SD card, edited the service settings (for SSH) of the RPi, found its MAC address so as to register to CMU-DEVICE, registered the device, and configured WEP file and SSH onto the RPi. Although it took longer than expected because I didn’t realize that a monitor was needed, we were able to successfully log into the RPi via SSH. Besides this, I also finalized the coding for the general layout of our GUI touchscreen, including its corresponding functionality. You can find the completed work here.

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

My progress is well ahead of schedule. However, we have fallen behind on the laser cutting of the enclosure because the material we initially wanted was unavailable at TechSpark, so we had to order it last week. Unfortunately, it did not arrive before spring break, causing a delay. To help catch up, I finished my main task for the project, prioritizing laser cutting as soon as the material arrives.

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

After spring break, I plan to meet with my team to laser cut the enclosure and begin testing the components to ensure everything functions as expected.

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 finalized the design review slides and integrated feedback we received from the team. Additionally, I assisted in finalizing our Bill of Materials and submitting purchase orders, which was one of our group’s primary objectives for the week. I also began the Design Review Report, extracting the template from Canvas, making some changes to it, and sharing it with Ashira and David via Overleaf Editor. On the development side, I worked on the screens, specifically implementing and enhancing the timer screen, improving its design, and adding the necessary functionality. Project repository: Vendibaddie GitHub.

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

I’d say that my progress is on schedule with the Gantt chart we made.

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

Next week, I plan to complete the design review report and implement the study session ended/item dispensed screen (frontend) as well as help Ashira with the laser cutting for the enclosure.

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 focused on researching the necessary components for our project, ensuring compatibility and reviewing documentation. A significant portion of my time was dedicated to refining our use-case requirements based on the feedback we received. This included tailoring the application to meet the updated requirements and establishing an initial quantitative baseline for our design specifications through research.

Additionally, I worked on finalizing the bill of materials by organizing components by supplier to optimize our budget. I also contributed to developing a more detailed block diagram of our project, ensuring better clarity in our system architecture.

On the technical side, I made progress with the GUI implementation using PyQt, setting up a virtual environment and GitHub repository. I was able to learn how to create widgets for the welcome and main screens, though they still require further refinement. Lastly, I submitted an inventory request and pickup for the Raspberry Pi to ensure we have the necessary hardware.

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

Due to adjustments in our project timeline, Week 6 was moved up to Week 5, which limited my ability to fully focus on my originally planned tasks from the Gantt chart. However, I was still able to start experimenting with window creation in PyQt and make initial progress on the GUI.

Since we began next week’s tasks early, I will focus on this week’s originally planned tasks next week to ensure I stay on track with our project schedule.

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

By next week, I aim to have a fully functional welcome screen and main screen setup in PyQt, with smoother navigation between them. I also plan to refine the GUI layout and begin integrating some input functionalities simulations as we have yet to get the touchscreen.