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Team Status Report 3/21

We didn’t hit any major new roadblocks this week. We spent a good chunk of time doing some preliminary testing on our 3D-printed clamp design, and the results were actually pretty encouraging. It feels sturdy enough to handle what we need. The biggest “problem” continues to be the overall mechanical fit. Now that we have the physical components, it’s clear that a lot of the parts we ordered don’t work great together. We also lost some testing time this week because we were missing a microSD card for the Pi, which kept us from really diving into the display and sensor integration.

Because the mechanical side is more complex than we originally thought, we’re making some adjustments to the chassis. We also realized the current mechanical connectors weren’t going to work, so we’ve ordered some new clamps and connectors to replace them. Moving forward, our plan is to pivot toward 3D printing a lot more of our own custom components rather than forcing the original parts to work. It’s a bit of a shift, but it’s the best way to make sure everything actually fits together securely.

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Steven’s Status Report 3/21

This week, I spent most of my time digging through the electrical schematics for our Raspberry Pi port adapter. Since the adapter hub takes up all the GPIO pins, I had to trace everything back to figure out which ports we can actually use for our Hall effect sensor. It took a bit of research to find where those pins lead, but I needed to be sure we could read the sensor data properly. We also hit a small snag because we didn’t have a microSD card for most of the week, which meant I couldn’t actually get the Pi and display up and running for testing.

To be honest, we’re running a little behind. When we first made the schedule, we didn’t really account for how soon the first product demo was coming up. Most of the electrical stuff is in good shape, but the mechanical side is way more complicated than we thought it would be. Now that we have the parts, we’ve realized a lot of them aren’t going to work the way we planned, so we’re pivoting to 3D print more of the components ourselves. That mechanical design is definitely our biggest hurdle right now.

Now that we have the microSD card, my main goal for next week is to finally get the Pi connected and try to drive the LED display. I’m also going to start testing the Hall effect sensor to make sure we’re actually getting the data we need.

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Team Status Report for 3/14

With all our components finally delivered, we spent the week transitioning from planning to active integration. Steven focused on the electrical subsystem, successfully verifying the power path from the rocker switch and PSU through to the motor control. Having the physical parts in hand has been important for Kendric, as he can now finalize the mechanical layout with exact dimensions, while Andrew has been balancing software development on the Jetson and Pi with the physical design. Our most significant risk currently involves several mechanical parts that don’t fit perfectly within our original chassis design. We are managing this by 3D printing custom adapters and using high-strength adhesives. If these adjustments don’t address our issues, we plan to find alternative mounting hardware locally to keep us on track.

There have been no changes to our system design, requirements, or block diagrams this week. While we are officially back on schedule, the “mid-semester” reality is setting in, and the final deadline feels much closer than it did before Spring Break. Although we haven’t needed to alter our technical specs, there is definitely a shared sense of urgency within the team to maintain this momentum. Now that the hardware is stable and being assembled, we’re in a good position to move into the final stages of integration without further delays.

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Steven’s Status Report for 3/14

This week, following the return from Spring Break, my primary focus shifted from documentation to hardware integration and assembly. With the arrival of our remaining components, I was able to begin the end-to-end assembly of our power system. I started by validating the rocker switch’s functionality directly with AC power before integrating it with the PSU. After verifying the PSU’s output voltage via multimeter, I successfully tuned and tested the buck converter against its datasheet specifications.

The most complex undertaking this week was the synchronized integration of the servo tester, Electronic Speed Controller (ESC), and the motor. This required extensive research into various datasheets to ensure signal and power compatibility. I am pleased to report that the integrated electrical system is now fully functional, with all components operating safely and as intended.

While we are technically back on track with our original timeline now that the hardware is in hand, the post-break reality is hitting hard. Although we are currently meeting our milestones, the approaching final deadlines have significantly narrowed our remaining buffer. The schedule feels much tighter than it did earlier, and there is a heightened sense of urgency to maintain this momentum to avoid further delays during the final integration phase.

Next week, my primary goal is to integrate and drive the LED display. I will focus on establishing the correct wiring and developing the initial test logic to ensure we can accurately output system data to the display. This remains a critical step in providing the necessary user interface.

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Andrew’s Status Report for 3/14

This week I further flushed out the software. For the Pi code, I created an initial draft with C++ code that takes display data over UDP and outputs it to the LED matrices. I implemented some hall effect sensor logic so we can estimate the angular velocity and determine the timing of when to push GPIO data. I also interfaced with an external library (https://github.com/hzeller/rpi-rgb-led-matrix) to actually send the data to the LEDs. Beyond the Pi code, I also briefly tested the Jetson code to ensure that the logic for spawning a Docker container from C++ and correctly implementing shared memory worked.

I think the progress for the software is on schedule since most everything is done. All that’s left is integrating the software to make sure it works with the hardware. Next week my main goal is to laser cut the enclosure, since I am in another class that gives me access to a laser cutter.

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Team Status Report for 3/7

This week, our overall status remains largely the same as last week. We have continued to experience shipping delays that are limiting our ability to move forward with subsystem testing. At this point, our primary bottleneck is still the arrival of a few key components required for full electrical integration. In the meantime, we have shifted our focus toward documentation and have been primarily working on completing and refining our formal design report.

Because we are still waiting on parts, we have not made major progress in hardware validation. However, we are using this time productively to ensure our documentation is thorough, technically consistent, and aligned with our implementation plans. This will allow us to transition smoothly back into hands-on testing once all components arrive.

We did not make any major changes to our system architecture or incur new costs this week. We received mostly positive feedback from our design review presentation, and as a result, we have continued forward with a design report that closely mirrors our presented architecture and justification. At this time, we do not anticipate significant structural changes to the system and will proceed with implementation as planned once testing can begin.

For product solution answers, A was written by Andrew, B was written by Steven, and C was written by Kendric.

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Steven’s Status Report for 3/7

This week, my primary focus was on writing and refining our formal design report. I was responsible for drafting the electrical subsystem section, ensuring that our power distribution architecture, current calculations, and safety margins were clearly justified and consistent with our earlier design trade studies. In addition to the electrical content, I also contributed to several of the general project management sections, helping document our schedule, team responsibilities, risk mitigation plans, and validation strategy to ensure the report accurately reflects our current system status.

Regarding our schedule, we are now facing a more significant delay than anticipated. Our most critical outstanding component—the rocker switch—has still not arrived. This part is essential for safely connecting our PSU to the rest of the system, and without it, we are unable to power and test the electrical subsystem in an integrated manner. Since next week is Spring Break, active progress will temporarily pause. While we are hoping all remaining components arrive during this time, our previously allocated buffer has now been fully consumed. As a result, we are slightly behind the schedule I originally planned for electrical validation and subsystem testing.

Next week, my primary goal is for all remaining components to arrive so we can immediately begin electrical testing upon returning. It is critical that we validate the electrical subsystem as soon as possible, since software development and debugging depend on having a stable, powered hardware platform. Beginning testing promptly will ensure we still have sufficient time to implement and refine the necessary control logic before final integration.

Part B:

Our volumetric display allows users to be immersed in a 3D experience with friends, rather than isolated from them. Rather than being forced to enjoy the experience alone, much like many VR headsets, the hologram display allows friends to interact and enjoy the experience together.  Moreover, our display transcends the language barrier, enabling individuals from various backgrounds to immerse themselves in the technological feat of a 3D display and bond over their shared fascination with making science fiction our reality.

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Andrew’s Status Report for 3/7

I spent more time flushing out all of the software for the Jetson. Beyond the computer vision Python code, I made the C++ environment for using OpenGL to render 3D geometry from OBJ files, implemented a compute shader to sample 2D slices, and developed some networking logic for compressing and sending data over UDP. Progress is visible on Github where all the source code is.

I think the software is overall on schedule. The current code should be enough to get the MVP working on the Jetson side, so all that’s left is the Pi code. Once initial implementations are done we can do more testing and optimization. Next week I want to try testing some of the software more.

Part A: Our product mainly addresses global factor through our implementation of interactivity. We want 3D interaction to feel natural and smooth compared to commonly available methods. For example, traditional 3D manipulation occurs in complex CAD software with unintuitive controls or VR environments with complex controller mappings. Using simple hand gestures to spin an object around removes these kinds of barriers for access.

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Andrew’s Status Report for 2/21

This week I began some work on the software side. I did some more in depth analysis for what ML models would work well. The final 2 choices were between trt_pose and mediapipe. trt_pose was made by Nvidia and was optimized for our Jetson hardware, making it much quicker. However, it had much worse accuracy compared to mediapipe. By default, the mediapipe installation doesn’t use the GPU on the Jetson, so I worked a bit on building the package from source to optimize performance. I think I got it working, so now the performance is more comparable to trt_pose while having much better accuracy, making it a clear winner. I also did some research into OpenGL for much of our graphics logic as well as some possible compression protocols to improve networking performance.

I think we are still on schedule overall as the software design is pretty mature, so the only big hurdles left for software are implementing and integrating.

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Team Status Report for 2/21

As we anticipated last week, we are currently experiencing shipping and logistical delays that are bottlenecking our testing phase. Fortunately, because we ordered our most important components early and built buffer time into our schedule, we have more than enough time to manage these delays without falling behind our final deadlines. Since we are stuck waiting for a few key items, our biggest risk remains the possibility of those delayed parts arriving broken or incorrect. To mitigate this risk as much as possible, we are actively bench-testing all the parts we currently have on hand. By making sure our existing components work properly right now, we can prevent a pile-up of technical issues later when the rest of the system finally comes together.

We did not make any major changes to our system design or incur any new costs this week. We just finished presenting our formal design review and are currently waiting to receive official feedback. We plan to keep the system architecture as it is until we hear back, and we will likely make any necessary design changes next week once we can review that feedback and incorporate it into our project plan.