Kira’s Status Report for 4/4

This week, my team and I presented our interim demo, which we prepared as an interactive way to show our progress. I wrote code to demonstrate the DMX transmitter and controller input by using faders (potentiometers) to send signals from the Arduino to an existing light, showing control of color and brightness. For verification, I confirmed the DMX receiver works by scoping both the input and output signals to check for correct transmission and timing.

As I worked on this, I focused on verifying my subsystem by making sure controller inputs map correctly to DMX values and produce the expected lighting outputs. I also used the oscilloscope to check signal consistency. Going forward, I plan to expand this testing to additional controls like pan, tilt, and focus, and check for accuracy and any noticeable delay.

For validation, we plan to test the full system by checking that the light responds correctly to all controller inputs for color and movement. We will compare expected vs. actual behavior, verify motion ranges, and observe responsiveness to ensure the system meets our design goals and works as intended for a user.

Additionally, our group continued fabrication by laser cutting the first rendition of our controller housing and soldering any components we can at this point. I plan to add more inputs and integrate the motor code with the DMX receiver soon. According to our Gantt chart, I am currently on schedule.

Ella’s Status Report for 4/4

This week I made a lot of fabrication progress. The pan mechanism is working and I got the arms spinning around, and also the head of the fixture is almost fully assembled. There are some things in the head that still need to happen, like angle grinding the lead screw down to length, adding some final fasteners, and figuring out a way to keep the gobo holder stagnant while the fixture moves. We also had our interim demo this week and we got some good feedback from all of our critiquers. Something that we definitely want to look into more that was a piece of feedback from Daniel our TA is adding thin padding around the focus motor to dampen the physical vibrations and hopefully reduce the noise. We are roughly on schedule, and as part of our interim demo we made an updated Gantt chart for the remainder of the semester. In the upcoming week, I intend to get the tilt mechanism working and ideally connect the head to the tilt mechanism, and IDEALLY connect the pan and tilt mechanisms and the head all together. If I don’t get all the systems together that would still be ok on our timeline. I also want to make more progress on the box for the base of the light, as this will be helpful for assembling the systems all together.

 

Pan video:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rlitiAY5163TgosCQWV2yORz7cq7cf2m/view?usp=sharing