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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

 

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Brandon’s Status Report for 02/07

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 got to work out the specific details of the implementation. There was a lot of unknowns when it came to the specific hardware and how it would interact with the algorithms and backend we were using. Having to understand what is needed for Pedestrian Dead Reckoning and what kind of hardware is needed to collect the right data showed me a lot about how I plan to integrate the IMU and GNSS modules. This also gave me a chance to start working on the PCB, as I now have pinouts for all of the modules, except for the screen. One of the kinks you have to work out when considering all of this is how to conserve battery an one of my issues will be implementing the usb c charger, this will be a major concern as it could take up lots of space if not implemented properly….

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

According to the schedule I have to prepare for the Design Review and finish the PCB for the device.

Right now I am on schedule, however it feels behind because this upcoming week with the design review I will have other commitments that will make me and other team members busy, focus will be essential. Therefore we are essentially late, but to make it work we need to communicate daily and follow up on commitments we made during our weekly Friday meeting.

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

Design Review slides, PCB Design, and ordering parts. We have established timelines, and the preparation ready, but need to get the work done.

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Team Status Report for 02/07

Currently our most significant risk is that our PCB may not be ready in time. Because this process takes so long, and can take more than one iteration to get it right, the PCB is our bottleneck. To manage this risk, we will be ordering our PCB by the end of the week to ensure we have as much time as possible to test and iterate if necessary.

We did not make changes to the overall design of our device. This is because we had a good idea going into our proposal presentation of what exact features we wanted to implement. However, we did ad user requirements to include more emotional user requirements, like spontaneity of meetup. This change was necessary because our device at its core is designed to connect and build community. It is not faster, smoother, or better designed than an iphone, but people will still gravitate towards it because it makes connecting with friends easier. Our previous requirements didn’t capture this nuance.

After making this change, we also had to change testing plans. Now our testing plans include user surveys and interviews. We have allocated 3 days for these plans. Our current schedule already includes these changes.

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Katherine’s Status Report for 02/07

This week , I worked on creating the proposal presentation. We created a document where we wrote out our content. I specifically worked on the use case and use case requirement section. Prof. Theo told us that our abstract missed the emotional use case requirements, such as metrics that measure stress reduction, or more spontaneous meetups. I wanted to make sure our requirements measured these requirements in a quantifiable way. Additionally, I wanted it to be very clear why our device is useful and is better than an iphone. I spent a good amount of time looking into the market our device fits into and how our device is different from the iphone.

I are currently right on schedule, as we created the schedule very recently. The main milestones we want to reach this next week is to have the PCB designed and ordered. I need to learn more about Google maps APIs and develop an understanding of how I would integrate it into our project.