Category: Jieun’s Status Reports

This week has been finalizing work for singular testing for the final presentation as well as continuing debugging multiple servo/signal implementation along with software integration. All of the weight sensors and servos are connected across two ESP32s, along with the PIR motion sensor. However, with the much larger complicated setup, there are still some bugs that need to be fixed timing-wise and accuracy-wise. However, at least one full compartment setup is fully working and tested (in time for the final presentation) along with individual component testing. This will continue to be worked up up till the demo day. I will continue working on getting the timing right for all 7 compartments, servos, and soldering to account for the wiring spacing for the mechanical-hardware integration. I will also be working on getting the web-app data successfully as part of hardware-software integration.

Progress is on schedule, getting ready for demo by taking out all the bugs, re-wiring so that it’s much neater, and debugging the re-wiring/integration as well.

We hope to be entirely done and functional to MVP with little to no bugs with entire system implementation smoothly finished.

Our full system implementation across hardware/mechanical for now (still needs to be cleaned up/debug-ed but the essential integration/movement is successfully completed/being tested).

Personally this week has been quite a lot: first the code was tested with the weight sensors, which required a lot of soldering, all of which has been completed with some re-soldering required during the final setup tomorrow/in the coming days before the final demo. Currently, all seven servos, the motion sensor, LED indicator, and most of the strain gauges have been implemented along with some starter code to connect with the software once the MQTT protocol to connect the two has been completed. My current work is to debug the issues once more than 2 servos have been implemented, which is that despite the multiple power sources, something is being connected improperly/ the servos are not functioning. I will be working on this remainder of the weekend to figure this out before the presentation.

Progress is right on track, though the debugging is worrisome as it was expected after 2 servos are working, 7 should work just as well. However, time will be dedicated to solving this issue as well as recruiting my other teammates as soon as possible should I not be able to find the issue by tonight.

I hope to complete the implementation of all 7 servos as well as integrating fully with the mechanical by tomorrow. With the software, it might need more debugging but hopefully that is completed by the final presentation. Worst case, it will be done before the final demo.

I had to learn more about the Arduino IDE and ESP32 Nano configuration- I have used Arduinos in the past but this is my first experience with the Nano as well as the GPIO pin configuration system, which was a learning curve. I looked at online forums with certain bugs (such as why a servo didn’t work with a digital pin- this turned out to be a GPIO pin number issue) as well as consulted AI tools such as Claude and ChatGPT for faster as well as more efficient answers, both of whom that I wasn’t too familiar with outside of simple conceptual questions prior to this semester. It was another learning curve to ask prompts that gave me the answer that I was looking for: for example, I was confused by my nano kept showing a red light and at first the AI believed I was talking about a different power indicator. After narrowing down my wordy explanations, it finally gave me the true issue: something was being grounded that wasn’t supposed to be.

This week, I have gotten the servos to work and waiting on getting our new power modules in order to have enough power for all 7 servos to work with incorporation with the app. The motion sensor is now fully implemented with the servos as well as the LED indicator. I also created some rudimentary files with the ESP-NOW protocol as I realized that one Arduino is certainly not enough due to the limitations on the GPIO/Digital pin allocation. Moving forward, there will be two Arduinos with the main arduino programmed with the still-testing/developing Bluetooth module IDE code.

For testing, I put into my code print statements showing when the pill is supposed to be dispensing. This will be first tested individually with the two type of sensors we are using: first, for the motion sensor, it will be tested by having various pills fall in front of the sensor and marking whether or not the serial monitor prints out that it was dispensed. This trial test will take place at least 50 different times so that a percentage of correctness can be calculated. It has already been briefly tested a total of 20 times in one trial run, with 12 out of 20 hitting correctly. Sensitivity will be adjusted, and hopefully with the weight sensor implemented, the overall accuracy can be improved on whether a pill dropped is correctly detected or not.

Progress is behind on the strain gauge end- we’re still waiting on the part arrival but will be working Monday which is when we expect to have them. Otherwise, everything is on track though it would be impertinent to fast forward a bit on the integration as currently we don’t have the mechanical part integrated either.

I hope over carnival I am able to finish the full hardware implementation with all 7 servos, which shouldn’t be too difficult considering how one set of motors is fully working, along with the weight sensing mechanism, which is the bigger challenge but also isn’t as difficult as our final step: integrating the hardware with the software app.

This week, I worked on creating a full simulation/working prototype of the electrical part of our device, and I am still working on debugging issues by simplifying to one set of motors instead. They seem to work well in sync with each other, however the algorithm with the motion sensor is not clear yet so that requires more coding/debugging. However, it will be resolved way before the demo day. There has been a change to our design due to my discovery that we are missing a converter for the stepper motor, but it would be better anyways to use our extra servo motors instead, so the stepper is a potential add-on rather than an official part of our full prototype.

My schedule is on track as of right now- I just need to debug the servo connections, but luckily my already-written code works well even with the 20kg servo, which was an initial worry but that has been resolved.

My goal is to move on to expanding to the 6 other motors we are going to have (which shouldn’t be an issue once one is working) as well as soldering once the whole electrical hardware has been completed as well as our converter for the strain gauges arrive- we realized that the converter that was already ordered was an 8bit and not sufficient for the strain gauge we got from Adafruit.

Just servo code snippet:

With bluetooth (for future implementation after demo) practice code:

 

For this week, I have continued on working on the electrical portion of our project- focusing yet again on the research/coding as our parts have not arrived yet due to an ordering mistake. One pivot I decided on was to change our design for getting the pills the fall into the compartment- instead of a forward-backward motion using a pulley or gear system, a more clear-cut movement of side to side (rotational movement to create the necessary gap for pill(s) to fall through, as seen below). There is a potential slight but significant pivot in the plans for the hardware aspect- as of right now, once all parts are in, we are only able to use one ESP32 as there was an error in ordering parts. For now, I’ll be combining RX and TX, keep bluetooth as an option as we’ll need it anyways, and trying out different codes, both with help from AI for different perspectives and combining with my own knowledge (example of one such code below).

We are still waiting for the parts to come in, so the building-aspect of my progress is not on the range I wanted it to be. I was very heavily-loaded this week from other projects and classes which did not bode well for getting ahead in my progress. However, I will be using a good part of the weekend to catch up not only on this course but others as well so that the upcoming week can be used to focus on finishing both the build and coding for the electrical/hardware portion of our project.

By the end of next week, the entirety of the hardware should be built and ready to demo at the interim demo. I will be using set hours throughout the next week to make this a priority, hence will be using this weekend to finish most of the work due earlier than later.

This week has been hectic due many time conflicts, with it following right after spring break, however a new personal schedule has been made to tackle all objectives before heading into our first demo. We were told that we needed to get our individual portions working, and therefore so far there is a working servo code, as attached below. I also worked on organizing and helping to order the main hardware parts which we will need for testing later. I will be continuing to work out the bugs as well as make a final decision on the design between the two microcontrollers: originally, our plan was to make it only have the main ESP32 handle all hardware signals, with just counter calculation being done in the other ESP32. If we run into issues regarding the complexity of the packets being sent due to ESP-NOW in the near future, this split will be undone and the potentiometer reading will be directly inputted into this RX ESP32. I’m moving forward into researching whether stepper motors can be addressed in the same way and going to move into individual testing. Overall hardware design is, however, similar to last week’s photo/design.

I am currently a bit behind as I don’t have the parts that we need to build the actual prototype yet and working with, as noted last week, a significantly weaker servo motor and potentiometer/ESP32s from either loans or personal collection. However, I will be catching up through lab work in the upcoming days.

I already am researching about the stepper motors, and starting on the code for it, but hope finalize coding and to be able to start testing with our ordered parts when they arrive. By the end of next week, I should have a completed hardware prototype in one way or another with the corresponding code.

This week, I created the datapath (as seen below) and formed the FSM logic (which can be translated into ESP32 Arduino logic as the signals should function the same) for the design presentation. Through this, I was able to discover and further research into the actual hardware needed for this project: instead of using a FPGA (a point which was rightfully questioned by our TA), it would be much more feasible and helpful if we used an ESP32 microcontroller. That way, we would be able to take advantage of an already-implemented protocol, ESP-NOW, on the Arduino ESP32s. I also helped in re-designing our original mechanical design, focusing on the issue where if there were too few pills left in the compartment.

Our progress is a little behind on ordering parts, but I plan to curate the needed electrical components to send/ready to order.

Also, I have started and will continue in coding/making a simple prototype using the ESP-NOW protocol in the next week for the electrical components in order to get us much more up to speed especially as spring break is rapidly approaching.