This week, I focused on refining our design and advancing our prototyping efforts. I worked on structuring and finalizing the implementation plan in our design slides and also conducted a final review of the components we need for our prototype with Jess, verifying specifications to ensure they align with our system requirements. I worked on detailed modifications on the testing, verification, and validation requirements by setting clear success criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of our hardware and software integration.
Using circuit components from the Physical Computing Lab in Ideate, I began assembling an initial hardware prototype, testing basic circuit configurations, and ensuring our force sensors, LEDs, and ESP32 communicate as expected. My hardware prototyping efforts will continue this weekend as I refine the first stage of our prototype, aiming to present a functional snippet during our design presentation.
Our progress remains on track with our project schedule. This weekend, I will help Sarah with practicing for our design presentation, ensuring we hit all the points. This coming week, we will expand our rapid prototyping efforts to include software-hardware communication by running ESP32-compatible software (Johnny-Five) alongside FastAPI to establish initial firmware interactions. I plan to finalize and test an early-stage hardware prototype with working LED indicators and force sensors early this week to begin integration testing to ensure firmware and hardware communication align with our expected use case. I will also continue refining our design presentation based on feedback after presenting.