I spent the first part of the week conducting basic user testing with Mihail and generally receiving feedback on the design of our chassis. We checked how much it took (on average) to load all of the code onto the FPGA itself, and had some users try to set it up based on a simple instruction sheet we had set up. While the numerical results looked good (and are discussed in depth in the team status report), it was clear that the UI itself was not fully integrated. As previously mentioned, I received good feedback from testers on things that would add onto the user interface, with one of them being buttons for the drum-track. Most of the people mentioned that something akin to keyboard switches would be good, so I ordered such switches in combination with spark fun cherry MX breakout boards:
Once I received all of the components, I soldered one of them with a switch and set it up on a breadboard to check that it worked before modifying the box. This included creating Arduino code that would account for debouncing, which was something I had not initially considered for keyboard buttons. It all worked without many issues (since I feel that my soldering skills have improved after dealing with the SparkFun MIDI breakout board), so I moved on to placing everything on the chassis.
This second portion of work for the week began with three reveals: 1. I had measured the knobs incorrectly such that they do not fit on the circular hole in the chassis, 2. I did not account for buttons or LCDs in my original design, 3. I did not consider that adding new components would require laser cutting the components from the beginning (as everything glued together would not be compatible with the machine at TechSpark). Because of that, I spent a significant amount of time redesigning the chassis, taking measurements for the knobs, keys, and LCD to make everything fit properly.
This, furthermore, required soldering all of the other cherry MX breakout boards and pins, which took up a significant amount of time (particularly since I messed up the initial orientation to solder in which required desoldering). Once the box was laser cut again, I put all of the components together, which resulted in the following interface being finally set up:
Now that everything is hooked up properly, testing and general setup should be much quicker in the final days of implementation. Everything on my end is going well, and there should not be much left for me apart from conducting more user testing/correctness testing for our report and setting our project up for demo day.