This week’s accomplishments
- Attended mandatory labs
- filled out reports that analyzed the final presentations from other groups
- Gathered data regarding the performance of our subsystems. Specifically:
- mapping the MOSFET gate voltages to the corresponding flow rate
- the performance of our PID loop that controls the heating element
- Once again, this week was filled with troubleshooting. There was a push to integrate everything together, which resulted in many bugs. There was a point in which all subcomponents worked correctly with each other. However, for whatever reason, the pump stopped working with the software script. Many hours were poured into trying to figure exactly why this happened, but no definitive result has been reached. Troubleshooting will continue this week.
Next weeks plan
- Complete the integration of the subsystems.
- This includes troubleshooting the pump bug described above. As mentioned above, we were able to get the pump (and all of the other subsystems) to work together for a full pour-over cycle. This week, we need to isolate this bug and fix it.
- Fine-tune the system. If needed, need to:
- tune the pour-rate of the pump (if flow rates are changed after the pump fix)
- ensure the total amount of water pour is accurate (up to 300mL)
- ensure the nozzle’s movements are completely contained within its expected range (to ensure no splashing/spilling water)
- Make the poster for the project
- Begin writing the final paper
Status Report: On schedule