This week was spent working with the rest of the team to bring up a testable prototype for the interim demo. I integrated my bluetooth client code to the system controller in our repository, and together we sorted out file dependencies to get a running program that plays audio upon valid accelerometer spikes. I also worked on planning ahead with the multithreaded code in mind, in which we will need to spawn separate threads for each drumstick–a foreseeable issue in our development is undoubtedly the timing synchronization between the accelerometer readings, computer vision detection, and audio playback, and I plan to meet with Ben and Belle to continue to test their interaction with the shared buffer thoroughly. Once the speed of the system, especially the CV, is confidently established, I may also update the rate at which the ESP boards notify the laptop with new readings, or even switch to a polling-based implementation.
The other potential concern is the interference on the 2.4GHz band once the second microcontroller is incorporated. In our weekly meetings with Tjun Jet and Professor Bain, we considered utilizing the Wi-Fi capabilities of the ESP32 rather than BLE to ensure adequate throughput and connectivity. With our testing this week, however, it seems that Bluetooth offers an appropriate latency for the needs of the project, and so our reason for choosing Wi-Fi would depend solely on the packet loss behavior of the two sticks running together. There could also be tradeoffs if we choose to redirect the system away from BLE in the form of setup time and ease of pairing, which would potentially neglect our use case requirement for versatility. As such, my plan for this upcoming week is to integrate the second ESP32 board to begin testing with two BLE devices, and to conduct a trade study between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for our specific use case. I believe the team is on schedule and providing ample time for testing, therefore allowing us to identify important considerations–such as lighting–earlier in the process.