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Katherine’s Status Report for 02/21

ACCOMPLISHED: 

This week I worked on setting up the server, integrating the Google API, creating designs for firmware and software (block diagrams), and creating user flow diagrams. For the design presentation, I created slides for design requirements, overall system diagram, firmware system diagram, and software system diagram. For the design presentation, we heavily focused on creating the user work flow that was easy to follow and also calculate power consumption in order to meet user requirements. I have also started testing our server system with our gnss module. 

PROGRESS / SCHEDULE:

My progress meets the schedule. I was able to finish Google maps API integration this week as well as the design presentation. Because of the design presentation, we also have a good idea of what the next few weeks looks like for software. We also were able to solidify task delegation since we decided what is going to be on firmware and what is going to be on software. This makes separating work and responsibilities a bit easier going forward. 

 DELIVERABLES / NEXT STEPS:

Next Week, I will:

  • Learn how to connect devices (microcontroller) to wifi
  • Implement the route planning system
  • Implement database
  • Learn how software will communicate with firmware 
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Brandon’s Status Report for 02/21

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). 

In creating the pcb I have run into some problems, namely enabling the buttons while also having a screen, initially I hadn’t fully understood how much verticality the buttons would need to be able to be pressed through the hardware enclosure. So I mainly worked on redoing our PCB design in order to accommodate for vertical clearance and allow us to create the hardware enclosure without worrying about button height. This is all in order to order the pcb on tuesday before break.

Below is an example of a small breakout board that won’t hurt to have on the top of the board.

 

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

We are behind schedule, we were supposed to order the pcb last week, but due to redesigning the pcb we will order it on Tuesday next week. This means we will get the pcb during spring break, which pushes back our physical integration schedule by a week. However to combat our mistake we have planned to order expedited shipping to get back on track.

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

PCB Design and Design Review Report

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Team’s Status Report for 02/21

What are the most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project? How are these risks being managed? What contingency plans are ready?

One of the most significant risks is that our 1st pcb design doesn’t work and subsequently our second design doesn’t work as well. While we have about $300 dollars to spend on pcb design and 3d printing it does make our team a bit nervous. Our contingency plan is to have our breadboard design ready and make changes to our hardware enclosure to ensure that the breadboard design would work.

Were any changes made to the existing design of the system (requirements, block diagram, system spec, etc)? Why was this change necessary, what costs does the change incur, and how will these costs be mitigated going forward?  

We currently don’t have any changes to the design yet, everything we fleshed out from the design review has stayed the same. Initial feedback from the design review seems to be that we should change a bit about how we present the product, but from a technical perspective nothing has changed.

The only change that we can think of is the pcb design, initially we had the esp32 on the top of the pcb, but due to clearance issues we have moved the esp32 to the bottom of the pcb to allow for smaller modules, mainly the IMU and GNSS to the top, in order to have clearance for buttons and the screen.

 

Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred. This is also the place to put some photos of your progress or to brag about a component you got working.

This week we presented our design review, yay! Also we have divvied up the work for the design review report which is important as this upcoming week will be a busy one for all of us. We believe we are all on the same page which makes other work easier to finish and helps us identify problems with our design and timeline.

No changes to our schedule, but we have some work to show off.

Here is a part of our pcb design, we have also got a server up and running which is making and parsing API requests to the google routes api.

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Lata’s Status Report for 02/21

ACCOMPLISHED: 

This week, I worked on learning more about PDR and how to implement it in MATLAB for basic user testing, with that I began implementing it in MATLAB and need to test it with our Phones IMU so that I can have a basic understanding of it when we go in and implement it into our Firmware. Additionally, now that we are more set on what we want to do and how to approach our problem, I know what I need to work on with the UI for the different stages the User will see, depending on the device’s state. 

PROGRESS / SCHEDULE:

My progress is behind schedule because I wanted to have finished testing the MATLAB code with our phones by this week, because we were hoping to have the IMU’s by now to test on a breadboard but due to ordering time the IMU’s still haven’t arrived so as a whole testing PDR is behind because we don’t have all the pieces yet so being behind on testing on the phone doesn’t affect the timeline, but rather not having all the parts does. 

 

DELIVERABLES / NEXT STEPS:

Next Week, I will:

  • PDR on Matlab – by Monday
  • PDR test on Matlab with phone – by Monday
  • PDR on breadboard – when IMU gets here 
  • start to figure out the setup for UI and stages for firmware – Ideally by Friday
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Brandon’s Status Report for 02/14

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 spent time clearly defining our implementation, firstly I had to choose parts to fit both our size and power restraints. Secondly, with the team we worked together to very clearly define the processes that occur to make our product functional, hopefully this will create some clarity to the audience. I am curious to if there will be clearer feedback from the audience as we haven’t gotten feedback from the audience submitted forms. Along with that the pcb design is almost complete though without a complete power analysis. Essentially our pcb is acting as a plate to hold everything together with minimal wires.

ESP32 C5 DevKit 1

SparkFun GPS Breakout – ZOE-M8Q, SETUP GUIDE

9DOF IMU BREAKOUT – ICM-20948

 

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

We are behind schedule due to not ordering our pcb on time, however it will be nice to get design feedback behind ordering something that is pivotal to the device. Though it was our intention to have a pcb that could be a bit more modular to our needs, eg being able to use Bluetooth tracking if our pdr algorithm is not accurate. This week with feedback we will be able to fix our design and order by midweek.

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

It is the same deliverables since last week, however they are all due on Monday. So to restate the design review slides, pcb design and ordering should be completed this week.

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Team’s Status Report for 02/14

Our most present issue was the fact that by Monday’s meeting, we were still fairly unsure of some of our MVPs, and we had a lot of maybes in what we wanted to do. Additionally, we still hadn’t thought about many situations and edge cases, such as how we were going to go through the process of connecting our device to Wifi as well as what our UI was going to look like. 

We made some changes to our design. After meeting with Prof. Theo on Monday, we decided that we need to scope down our MVP. We ultimately decided that we will continue to implement PDR for outdoor tracking however we decided to scope down from including indoor tracking as we would rather have one component working very well rather than two components kind of working, because we are still implementing PDR for outdoor we do still have the ability to implement indoor tracking if time allows however it is no longer a part of our MVP. Additionally, we figured out what we want our UI to look like, and we decided that we want to implement both a friends list and a random list, which was still open for a bit. 

Our testing plan and schedule remain the same because we still need all the components we used for indoor testing for outdoor testing as well.

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Lata’s Status Report for 02/14

ACCOMPLISHED: 

This week, I worked on the Design presentation. I focused on Testing, Verification, Metrics, and created a design of what the UI will look like when clicking through the different sections. I  have done my research into PDR and how to implement it into MATLAB, and have begun the implementation. 

PROGRESS / SCHEDULE:

My progress is a bit behind schedule because my goal was to finish implementing PDR by Saturday however I think it will be a bit closer too Sunday/Monday by the time I finish however I dont think that this will make that much of difference in the timeline due to the fact that the components that we are actually using for the PDR (IMU) will not be arriving until next week when the real integration with that will begin 

DELIVERABLES / NEXT STEPS:

Next Week, I will:

  • Complement my implementation of PDR on MATLAB
  • Begin implementation of PDR on a breadboard so that when we hook it up to our device, we will have an idea of how to do that
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Katherine’s Status Report for 02/14

ACCOMPLISHED: 

This week, I worked on the design presentation. After meeting with Prof. Theo on Monday, we decided that we need to scope down our MVP. My team and I worked on creating the user walk through and aligning on a few major details. The first one being whether or not we want to include indoor tracking as a part of our MVP. We ultimately decided against it as we were still unsure of how we wanted to implement indoor tracking and at this point we needed to be certain of our MVP. I also worked on understanding the server side. I researched into API integration with Google Maps and how to set up our servers. We also spent a while on UI designs and user journey. Our product has many states (sleep, searching, etc.) and we wanted to draw out exactly what these states meant and how our interface will allow users to go from one state to the next. 

PROGRESS / SCHEDULE:

My progress is on track. My tasks for this week was to set up servers, research API integration, and create user journey and UI. Our major goal this week was to design + order to PCB, which would allow us to integrating and testing our UI and communication.

DELIVERABLES / NEXT STEPS:

Next Week, I will:

  • Integrate API to node.js
  • Decide on communication protocols
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Meet PULSE

Pulse is a dedicated, handheld device that facilitates spontaneous human connection without the digital baggage of a smartphone. By providing a single directional vector toward a friend, the device replaces the administrative labor of texting and the distraction of digital maps with a high-intuition, eyes-up navigation experience. Pulse allows students to share their location and navigate toward others without the cognitive load of notifications or context-switching. Pulse encourages students to explore new physical environments and break out of academic silos, ensuring they can wander freely while remaining connected to their community.

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Lata’s Status Report for 02/07

Accomplished:

This week, I worked on the proposal presentation. I focused on Testing, Verification, Metrics, and Key Technical Challenges and Mitigations. Additionally, I gave the presentation on Wednesday, so my focus was on understanding what everyone was writing and memorizing the slides. Additionally, I submitted our first purchase request for the GPS device we will be using for our project. I looked into PDR a bit based on what others have done and how they have implemented it in MATLAB as a base for how I will have to do and and I have thinking about what I will want to change and update so that we can have more precise location detection.

Progress / Schedule:

My progress is on schedule because we set the schedule recently and included a brief break at the beginning. Based on the schedule in this week I need to learn about PDR and how to implement it on a Breadboard and Matlab, however without knowing how to do it on Matlab first ill struggle to do it on a breadboard so it seems like I am behind schedule because I need to understand PDR and how it all works and implement it this week so that I can easily implement it on a breadboard next week.

Deliverables / Next Steps:

Next Week, I will:

  • Research the different ways to implement PDR Algorithms 
  • Learn how to utilize the Kalman filter and other filters for PDR
  • Implement and test PDR methods in MATLAB to figure out which method might be the most reliable