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Sizhe Chen’s Status Report for 3/30

This week, I mainly work on building out the gantry system and figuring out the control from python to Arduino and finally to the motor driver. I was able to directly control the gantry system from PC.

My progress is somewhat still behind schedule. As we are still trying to catch up the time lost on building the mag lev device, we have made significant progress for the last few weeks by building out individual components of our system.

We hope, by next week, we can have roughly the whole system build out with chassis. As the interim demo is on Monday, I will work with Shuailin on Monday to finish what need to be done for demo. We will further refine the system and hopefully have a rough product by next week.

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Shuailin Pan’s Status Report for 3/30

This week, I mainly helped with building and tuning gantry, system assembly , and helped with testing piece detection threshold in python code.

Design wise, Sizhe and I decided to flip the locking and hall effect sensor placement under the board to help with better resolution when detecting pieces.

The current most significant risk lies in software communication of board state and the challenge in improving gantry speed.

Next week, I will try to help with software design to eliminate current communication issues of piece detection and motor movement between the hardware control code and webapp software. I will also begin designing and cutting the final version of the outer chassis since the gantry dimension is confirmed.

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Sizhe Chen’s Status Report for 3/23

This week, I mainly contribute the projects by helping Shuailin with circuit testing/realization testing with existing board as well as assembling go pieces. I also further modified my PCB file after seeing similar projects online. Yet I still cannot finalize the PCB design due to the lack of progress on the gantry system. However, I came up with a back up plan using custom PCB board which is less optimal but should work if PCB has major design issues.

Schedule wise, we am still behind as we have not yet integrate with our gantry system yet but we have finished all other small aspects of the projects. We are confident that we can accomplish much by next week.

 

 

 

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Team Status Report for 03/23

Our most significant risk is still the usage of PCB for the HE sensor matrix.

Design wise, Shuailin had a small change regarding the feeding system placement due to magazine with spring requires too much force to put around 40 go pieces inside. Sizhe had a small change regarding HE sensors multiplexer reading sequence schema to improve reading speed.

Schedule wise, the team is still behind for integration. However, Sizhe and Shuailin did most of the integration and grunt work that does not require gantry. Zipiao had made great process in software development.

Next week, since Zipiao is back, we will focus on integration with the gantry system to achieve actual general Gomoku game flow.

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Shuailin Pan’s Status Report for 03/23

This week, I mainly finish grunt works and setup circuit and prep for smooth gantry integration. I laser cut go pieces in bulk and assembled them together with Sizhe. I also setup a transparent full size gomoku board for clearer movement and integration testing. I also helped with hall effect sensor detection and multiplexer circuit.

Design wise, I scrapped the idea of using compression spring in the go piece magazine, since after mass producing the go pieces, I found out that inserting over 20 pieces into the spring loaded magazine chamber requires too much force. Meaning, for integration, the feeding system would be upright using gravity instead of horizontal using compression spring.  Feeding movement involving stepper motor is unchanged. Risk wise, this is a simple change and mainly only impacted appearance and not functionality.

Schedule wise, I am still behind due to not being able to integrate with gantry. However, I finished all possible prep work, testing circuity and code to help expediting once we can integrate with gantry next week.

 

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Zipiao’s Status Report for 3/23

This week, my major contribution to the project is that I finished all the logic regarding the webapp gomoku logic, mainly the algorithmic side. Specifically, I designed the data structure to store the game state, completed the board integrity checks (checking if a move is legal) and the algorithm for checking the winning state using a Breadth First Search approach (for each new piece placed onto the board, a check for the four directions starting from that note (x,y) will be executed and if one of the directions (left_right, top_down, t_left_b_right, t_right_b_left) has >= 5 pieces of the same kind, that colored player will win and the game state will also change accordingly.

By now, the major logic for the software is complete, and the rest of the work will be to connect the arduino module of the hardware to make the move from one of the players and we will call it done for the software side. I would say that this week we have a major progress in the software side. Starting next week, I will start to develop the gantry system that we’ve left over due to the travel emergencies last week. The progress for our webapp is good, the only thing is to catch up with the gantry.

 

 

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Team Status Report for 03/16

Our most significant risk is the still the PCB component that we decided to add to our system. Moreover, we have to postpone the building of xy motor system because Zipiao was not able to return to US this week.

We currently do not have any design change and we had a deeper understanding of our project by diving into the individual components and assembling them.

Schedule wise, as Zipiao was unable to return in time, we assigned Zipiao to do the webapp first during last week. And Sizhe and Shuailin was able to finish certifying that there are no interference problem between locking and detection system.

Next week, since Zipiao is likely coming back, we will mainly focus on integration with the gantry system and decide on the actual dimension of the outer housing.

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Sizhe’s Status Report for 3/16

This week, my main focus was on completing the design of the PCB. On Monday, I fully tested out the new analog hall effect sensor and tested out the voltage different resulted from different magnet size. I also worked on the ethic assignment and finished designing the PCB. However, I have not yet placed the order since the team want to make sure the dimension actually match the x-y motor system so we plan to place the order after completing that part of project.

Our progress is still behind as Zipiao was unable to return to US in time due to some unexpected issue. However, we have made significant progress and we will continue working this week to catch up.

Looking forward, we anticipate that we will finish x-y motor system as a team and begin to do some basic integration with the Arduino so we can move the go pieces by next week

 

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Shuailin Pan’s Status Report for 03/16

This week I mainly finish constructing and putting together the actual go pieces using laser cutting and successfully test the feeding system using the stepper motor with flags, laser cut housing and the compression spring. I also help with testing the interference of hall effect sensor detection and the locking system. After testing, we conclude that given current designed magnet and board thickness, there should be no issues.

Design wise, there are no major changes in the feeding system. However, I may need to laser cut new housing for the feeding magazine when trying to integrate with the gantry system.

Plan wise, I am behind on the deciding the actual placement of the feeding system as well as the positioning of the feeding area since I don’t have access to the gantry system.

Next week, since our teammate is coming back, I will mainly focusing on integration with other modules and implement any changes needed for the feeding system.

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Zipiao’s Status Report for 3/16

This week, due to some unexpected issues, I was not able to return to the US from the spring break, making it not possible for me to develop the x-y gantry system with the stepper motors. In order to mitigate the situation, I had to reschedule the task so that the intended schedule is not falling behind. This week, I mainly focused on developing the software interface (web app) logic on the PC. I finished kickstarting the Django project, designed and implemented a basic user interface, and developed some basic logic for gomoku controls. Now it is able to place black and white pieces onto a board interchangeably.

Due to unforeseen obstacles, the schedule for this week (which is supposed to be the gantry development), is a bit falling behind. Starting next week, I will continue to develop the software to incorporate a complete game playing logic and start to explore the options to integrate with the hardware using PySerial. I will also use my time to assemble the x-y gantry system.